


Damian Wayne X Reader

by My_Sweet_Melancholy



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:39:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 44
Words: 58,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8845444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Sweet_Melancholy/pseuds/My_Sweet_Melancholy
Summary: Damian Wayne, a strong young man, at the age of eighteen, looks back at his life by writing a book for a therapist that he is being forced to see. Everyone thinks that this is the best course of action, but things spiral out of control, once again, in his life, his family fears that he might just become fully unhinged this time. Will he be able to regain his sanity?
(I do not own anything except the plot).





	1. Chapter One: I Remember When I Met Her

(H/C) hair. (E/C) eyes. Not my type of friend. Not my type of best friend. Her hair was smooth yet shriveled, her clothes wrinkly yet fit over her frame perfectly. She could make ends meet. She could make opposites look beautiful together.

It was right after school ended, a horde of kids were rushing out of the gates like rabid animals. She was like a stalker, a predator in the movies. It's like when the antagonist that is slowly sniffing out the protagonist; The villain is across that street. And suddenly a bus shuffles by on its street minding it's own business, and the antagonist vanishes, nowhere to be found as the bus passes by.

She was like that. At a moment's notice, she was leaning on a dull gray concrete wall that has seen better days, and then she was with the horde. The horde of rabid, blood-sucking kids. The horde of rabid, blood-sucking kids that took her away from me. The horde of zombies, with their brains fried from the tiring day that they just had, making their dead, colorless groans as they had to do their piles of homework that their zombie-teachers gave them. Everyone in this damn public school was a zombie, but not her.

No, she wasn't my type of best friend. But to put it bluntly, she was my only friend. She was the only human in the horde of zombies, and humans always had to stick together in order to survive. I quickly shook my head of this nonsense as I walked up the slimy, uncleaned concrete steps. A familiar black limo pulled up on the side of the sidewalk as the last of the zombies went to their homes to be served by their mothers, to feast on that last human brains.

I rushed and got into the limo. It smelled like strawberries today. "Have a good day, Master Damian?" Alfred said in a bitter tone. To everyone else, Alfred's voice was warm and inviting; to them. He always used the same tone, he wasn't singling me out. And then I came up with two explanations to support my theory of Alfred not hating me, (Too much). I was having hearing problems, which was very possible. You can never really know what's about to happen to you when you're a Robin. You can become blind, deaf, and since the Lazarus Pit exists in this world, you can die and come back to life. Anything can happen to you, at any time.

And here comes my second explanation; Which was the one that was much more, probable. My family was a mini-herd of zombies too. And when I mean zombies, I am not living in a fantasy land where zombies are the real deal (Although I would love to see it happen. Mass human destruction is secretly kinda my thing, hopefully no one finds out), but the zombies that live day in and day out, they are normal human beings that follow a schedule that won't change for the span of their lifetime.

Each day, they wake up, work, eat, sleep, repeat. It would be impossible not to be a zombie after fulfilling that schedule for a couple of years. And Alfred has fulfilled this schedule for- How many years now?

Exactly. He has been doing this for forever. And so has the rest of my family.

And with that thought, I had dinner, I completed my homework, and I sat down on my bed, ready to go to sleep. I heard something smack itself against my window- Probably just another 24-hour long flood-inducing rain shower. Until I looked closely, really closely, until another one of these things hit my window. It was a pebble. My first thought was 'First Zombies, now reversed gravity?' You don't even want to know how many sarcastic and sadistic thoughts fill my head on a daily basis.

I opened my window to look outside, and I see the girl that I was staring at today. The girl with warm blood. The human. "I caught you staring. What for, man?" I started to blush to my ears. She caught me staring? I'm usually sneaky about these things, so I must have been staring really intensely at her for her to notice.

"You're different. That's why I was staring." I said back. I think she took it as an insult, practically everything was in this filthy city, so I couldn't really blame her. And what she did next was astounding. She got out of my line of sight, and then, a part of her hair popped up from the ledge that extended from my house. Then her whole head, and eventually her whole body was on the ledge. And somehow even Titus, my dog that could sniff a stranger from five miles away, couldn't sense her.

"Now tell me, why am I different?" She said as she got close to my window. Totally bewildered, I had to recollect myself in order to speak an appropriate response. I mean, she just climbed two stories and walked for God-knows-how-long to get here. The least I could do is let her in. I gestured for her to climb through my window.

She happily obliged as I explained my thoughts that I had that particular afternoon.

As I ended my antics, she started to burst out with laughter. As she laughed I punched her right arm, saying "Shut up!" And the blush returned to my ears. "Alright, I admit, that was some poetic stuff." She said as her sweet, teasing honey-dew laughter died down. "Therefore, I am calling you Lurker." I gave her a questioning look as she explained: "A lurker is another type of Zombie." The laughter and the endless chatter faded away as Damian's smile grew small, and he shut his book, feeling an ache in his chest. No sunlight reached his eyes whatsoever.

And before he went to bed, feeling nothing, he thought 'I guess I'm a zombie too, now. A real one.'


	2. Chapter Two: Quirks

In the course of our friendship, we always found out little quirks about each other. I mean, she single-handedly found out that I was a Robin. She was smart. 

Quirk number one. Smart. 

After one month of calling me "Lurker", we kind of got tired of the stupid nickname, so we switched to a nickname that was much more fitting to my personality. "Zombie". Well, sometimes it depended on the situation. I remember when Grayson... When that damned lunatic died. She called me Damian then. At that point in our friendship, I seriously doubted that she would ever remember my name. Sure, she could look it up, but she really didn't like the internet, and neither did I. 

Quirk number two and three. Good memory comes in handy when sentimental moments are at hand, and she likes books and 50's Jazz better than the internet and the new Pop songs that come on the radio. Classy. Therefore, I called her "Miss Classy" when I found this out. She absolutely hated it.   
But then it grew on her. And she was amazing at being classy. It was one of her many natural talents. And then I found out her fifth quirk, which explained the constant deep purple bags under her eyes and her unusually pale skin. If you saw her, she'd be pale, even for a Gothamer. 

She was an insomniac. 

So every night I would come to her house, her being fully awake of course, and if we had a sleepover, I would ease her to sleep. I don't know what happened in her head when she went to sleep early into the friendship, but it was something bad. After five minutes she would start to murmur in her sleep, after ten she would say quiet words, after twenty-five she would say full sentences and after that, she would scream and kick after one hour. And the problem with me is that I cared enough to ask one night.   
I remember the moment. It was horrifying and angry and sad all at the same time, emotions that I was taught to keep separate and use fear as my weapon. Use a weapon against my best friend? Never. So while we sit side by side on her couch, I asked "Sorry but, what are those dre-" I corrected myself. "Nightmares about?" She held still for a moment. She was wondering if she should tell the truth, which was a little insulting at first. She knew that she could always talk to me. But then I figured that it was some personal stuff that I was asking about. And it was. 

"My dad and my mom. One night, since they couldn't pay up their rent for the past few months, a gang came in our house, and my mom told me to hide under my bed...I did. They came into my room, and they must've known what my mom said because they pulled me out from under my bed and made me watch my father... Wh-Who was a veteran get killed. He was beaten to death, and they shoved me back under my bed."

I could tell that this was difficult for her. Her eyes were glossy like freshly cleaned glass windows and her voice was wavering from sad to angry to horrified. "M-My mom got thrown on the bed and... S-Someone got a sword out and stabbed her through by bed, almost cutting clean through my head too. Her b-loo-d started to drip on my face." At this point, she was crying and shaking, so I put my arm around her, and I whispered in her ear "I am so sorry." In her ear over and over again.  
I could never imagine what it would be like to go through that. And I've seen some graphic things. But this took the cake. I would just try to picture my father trying to fight multiple men, but then he got tired and I was forced to see him being beaten to death. And then my mother's blood would be soaked on my face. It also made me wonder how she was not in Arkham Asylum. I guess, she was tougher than other people. 

Quirk number six. Very physically and mentally tough. 

But those were her main quirks. These are the rest of her little differences that made her even classier.   
We had matching bracelets, (Shut the fuck up. They were amazing.) She had a giant dog. She would cross her fingers like a prayer whenever we sat down, and when we talked she would tilt her head and would politely make eye contact with you, which was a rare trait I quickly found out as I moved to the Americas. She loved horror movies and politics with a passion, her laugh sounded like Beethoven got resurrected and conducted a symphony in her chest.   
She always used to carry a coin and roll it through her knuckles. It was surprisingly mesmerizing to watch.  
And she... was really easy to talk to. No strings attached, you could just dump everything out when things got too stressful or insane. And trust me, my whole family used her talent. She could make you feel so important- Like you really mattered. She could set an ambiance that would put heaven to shame, as Grayson so gracefully stated. Even Jason showed up when she was around. She was a miracle to have.   
She loved so many things, and I hated even more. 

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He set down his book once again to walk to his balcony. He opened the glass door with gentle fingers and took a small step outside. This was the first time he actually went on this balcony in years, at a moment's notice he felt as it would crumble underneath him and he would fall three stories right onto his face. With careful, gentle steps he made his way to the railing and took a deep breath. He looked to his right, and with a feather-like touch, he soothed his hand over the worn-down concrete. His memories were coming back one by one. He smelled muffins and melting wax, he heard the soft melody of your voice, and at last, his mind was taken back.   
Melting wax. Muffin. The soft melody of your voice. 

Damian found a box wrapped in his favorite colors. Light blue, and blood red, as its presence was blocking the sun, making it look like heaven's messengers brought this box down with their own hands. The sky was painted in various deep blues, purples, pinks and oranges as he walked up to the box and looked side by side. No one to be found. And he looked at the box again. Everyone in the Manor seemed to have forgotten his birthday, and this wasn't some sour way to cover up a sweet birthday surprise, no. They had actually forgotten about his birthday. He himself didn't care about birthdays. They were just another lousy way to say "You are older now! One year closer to death for you! Yay!" So when he walked up to this box he seriously considered just nudging it over the edge, letting Titus mow down on it. No one knew his favorite colors either. This was getting suspicious. 

But, he was getting suspicious of a tiny box. What harm could it do? He opened it, unraveling it's pretty bow and sliding off the lid. Inside, a note read: 

"Please don't lose these. I know you don't like big birthdays that much, so I just gave you this and a strawberry muffin, your favorite. And I mean this when I say it,   
Happy birthday, Damian.

-Miss Classy"

Inside the box were dog tags. He let the cold metal chain slide through his fingers before he took the tags themselves and outlined the name on tags. He looked behind him, tags still in hand, and he saw you, with the angelic sunlight on your face and the warm ambiance of the candle battling with the sky, and he thought 'You deserve so much better than me, Miss Classy.' Your giggles sounded smoother than silk as you said "Come on! You don't want the wax to get all over the muffin, do you?"

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Damian rubbed his hand over his heart and with that, the muffled jingle of the dog tags followed it. "No, I wouldn't want wax on that muffin at all. It would be such a waste." He said in a quiet, broken voice. 

Quirk number seven. Too kind for your own damn good.


	3. Chapter Three: Fears, Stars, and the Cold World Around Us

As I write this book I keep on remembering memories that seemed fuzzy a while ago. For example, my family invited Miss Classy on a camping trip. I think that they knew I would most likely take down a grizzly bear if she hadn't come with me. I would be that angry and bored. 

We were traveling to a secluded forest where there were no buses, no lights, no prostitutes or villains. Just crickets and birds. Just streams and leaves. Just the Earth and the bright stars. So, we each setup tents that could fit two people. Jason and Dick got one, Stephanie and Cassandra, Barbara and Alice, Tim and Alfred, Bruce got his own since no one wanted to sleep with him and he was the size of a giant, and then last but not least (Y/N) and I. Wow, my hand actually hurts like hell now. Grayson tried to tell a scary story around the campfire. Everyone was scared out of their damn minds. 

Except for me and MC of course. We were kinda used to the constant terror of- Well, shit. Everything. We ate toasty marshmallows and cheeseburgers. I remember the smoky smell of the fire and the crackly instruments it played to keep us warm. I used to stare at a fire and feel overwhelming amounts of rage. It's like a smoker that suddenly stopped smoking- But for me, I was a killer that suddenly stopped killing. Sometimes I would just get cravings to see blood pour slowly, painfully out of someone's skull. 

(Y/N) was really the only one who could tell the difference between Zombie-Me and I-Will-Rip-Your-Fucking-Head-Off-Without-Regret-Me. She could sniff it out as if she were a bloodhound, so when I got like that all of the sudden, staring into the fire, playing it's crackly instruments to keep us warm, she yawned and stretched to come off like she was tired. My Zombie family caught on and got tired too, so one by one, they went into their own tents, complaining and mumbling in their sleep. 

"Follow me, Damian." Yup. For sure she knew that I was the I-Will-Rip-Your-Fucking-Head-Off-Without-Regret-Me. I growled as I stood up, my balance shifting and the fire's music getting quieter and quieter, as I followed the girl illuminated in the sunset. And she stopped, she had an expression on her face that read "Gone." I was breathing heavily, sticky sweat dripping down my forehead. I guess I wasn't so used to the outdoors after all because the last thing I saw before I heard ringing in my ears and my back hardly hit the ground was MC's worried face. 

I don't exactly know how much time I spent just sleeping, but then again, in your subconscious, time doesn't really seem to exist. At first, it seems that you are all curled up in a soft, warm blanket, and the next thing you know the morning sun is glaring down at you, playing it's music louder than the alarm that didn't succeed in waking you up in the first place. It could have been thirty minutes or three hours, MC didn't really tell me how long I was out. We never grazed over that subject. 

But nevertheless, I woke up to a pain in... my everything. My head was pounding to the point where my ears were still ringing and I was seeing little swarms of black dots- If it were my own eyes playing tricks on me or if they were actually swarms of flying insects is another thing that remains a mystery to me. My hands and feet felt numb and my stomach felt as if it were clenched and twisted and tied into knots over and over again. I wanted to puke. 

When I tried to groan, nothing came out. God, what was happening to me? I didn't get this sick- Never. I tried to twitch and scratch the ground beneath me. The pads of my fingers moving a fraction of an inch until my nails hit the surface and made a small screech, as if they were in pain and that was their only way to express it. She twisted her head and her worried eyes met my pained ones, while she was holding her breath. "O-Oh God, Damian." I tried groaning. I tried again. 

God, what was happening to me?

"You need anything? I have everything we need- I snuck it from the camp." She said while shifting on her knees to be at my side. She took off her jacket and lifted my head so she could elevate it. I couldn't feel it, but I knew that she was being very gentle. "Wha-Wat-eer." I somehow managed to choke out. This could help my speaking ability. She quickly grabbed a blue bottle and opened the lid while I tried to open my mouth. She poured very slowly before my mouth filled up half-way, the perfect amount. I tried to swallow. I tried again. 

She knew exactly what to do. She pressed her hand on the middle part of my throat, and it was much easier to swallow the water. "What's h-happening?" I asked her in a hoarse, quiet voice. 

"Damian, this is from experience, but you had a major panic attack. Something triggered your memory to go into shock, which meant your body froze all functions for a split second. But for even that split second, it's life threatening. God Damian, you scared me." Now this confused the fuck out of me at first, but then I looked around. Trees, mountains, streams. This scene was just like home- No, my old home. The League of Assassins. 

So it made sense. Sense was good. In fact, it was great. And the second best thing, that came into a close second, was physically getting better, not just for myself, but for the friend that was shaking beside me. "L-lay down. We might be h-here awhile." She did as I asked without a word of protest. "Damian, I was scared about a lot of things before this, but this took the damn cake. I don't want to see you like this again. Ever." She spoke her mind, alright. But what shook me was how she said that she was scared about certain things before. "Scared of what before? Bears or mosquitoes?" I joked. She chuckled, so quietly. "No. I was thinking about life in general." She sighed, the hot wind from her mouth being taken, eaten by the cold wind. Like how we were being eaten away by the cold world. Slowly, painfully, and the only thing to cling onto were the stars that were millions of miles away. 

"Pour it on me. I can take it." She chuckled again. So. Quiet. "I-I was thinking if I were ever to be remembered after death. I mean, if I ever was going to have a nice family. Y'know, with a nice husband where he went to work every day and I would take care of the kids until they were old enough for kindergarten, that kind'a thing. And when I grew old I would see my grandchildren, telling them boring-ass stories about 'My Generation used to' or 'Back when I was your age'. But..."

Tears started to fall from her beautiful eyes, maybe I couldn't take this. "... I am so afraid. I am so afraid that I will never have a husband or a nice house or nice kids or a college diploma! I am so afraid that I am going to mess up big somewhere along the line, and it'll all be over! God, Damian, I am so sorry." Now this was no random thing. She must have been thinking about this for a long time. So I wiped her tears away and said:

Damian closed his book. He couldn't take that memory anymore. "Don't cry, MC. And don't you dare be sorry." He said as he was trying to wipe his tears away. He hunched over his desk, his back arched and his shoulders shaking. Each word he wrote felt like a punch to the gut, like he was doing something wrong and he knew what he was doing.

Yeah, like that punch in the gut.


	4. Chapter Four: Cliff's Edge

Bruce walked in his mansion. Normally, he would be out patrolling. But, he got pneumonia. Now if anyone knew Bruce Wayne, they knew that he hated getting sick with a passion, and somehow Alfred called Dick to make sure he didn't leave the house. Alfred knew what was best, but still, damn. He knew that he could be doing more... productive things, but even if he lifted a pen or a Batarang his whole arm would shake. Right now, his knees were weak from walking too much. 

So, Alfred knew what was best. And it was very irritating. But, Bruce was determined to be a good father, and check up on his newest son, (He thought it was funny when people referred to Damian as his "Newest Son" like it was inevitable that he was going to get another one), Damian. And Bruce didn't like to lie; He was worried about his little Robin. And this is something that he would never willingly admit but, he loved this son the most. There was something special between father and "The newest son". If it were a connection by surprising similar appearance, or if it were through solemn and cross-personality, but Bruce had a pretty good idea. It was through blood. 

Bruce was comforted by that fact that his son was, well, actually his. And maybe, just maybe, he could have grandchildren under the name Wayne. Not Grayson or Todd or Drake, but Wayne. His bare feet made soft, muffled noises on the hardwood floor, a sudden chill crawling like spiders up his spine. The manner always was so cold after Martha and Thomas died. Or maybe it was him who felt cold, he could never really tell after the loss. Thump, thump, thump. Giant feet hit the ground. Even if he tried to sneak, Damian would hear him. He's an ex-assassin for Christ's sake. 

He was just outside his door, he quietly put an ear up to the solid wooden slab. Shuffling, not pillows or backpacks, but papers and pens. Damian did his homework. All of it. So what could he be doing? Bruce searched his mind for a possible explanation; Maybe he was writing a story? No. Damian had no time for stories. And he had no creativity whatsoever. His Art and English teachers could cover that topic some other time, though. Drawing? Well, maybe. He knew that Damian drew, but not this late. So another possibility scratched out. 

Bruce decided that he needed to take Damian to a therapist, he needed the help that Bruce couldn't give him. And in a twisted, selfish way, it was humiliating for Bruce. He never had to seek help from anyone, especially a therapist for his sons. Although, now that he thinks about it, he could have overcome his foolish pride awhile ago and everyone would be a happy family. But time is irreversible, so Bruce stopped dwelling on the past. He opened the door. Damian was on his balcony, for the first time in years. Bruce now knew how delicate this situation was. 

But Bruce also knew how tough his son was, too. 

Bruce knew that Damian has been torn, crushed and shattered. He was like an art project with an insane artist sculpting him together. At first, he was just a block of cold stone, sitting there. But, this insane, unbalanced artist chipped away at him as the years went on. This artist got a hammer and pounded away at Damian until he was only an outline of a human being. And then came the details, the little frustrations in life that finished this piece of art. When he was done, Damian was a magnificent, terrifying, extravagant ugly being. But she was no little detail in the process of making him. She left a huge, gaping hole right in the center of his chest so everyone could see his poor, twisted vengeful heart. 

A sculpture of a boy that had a hole in his chest with guilt-ridden and angry eyes. 

After he was done with the details, the Artist plated him with gold, so it seemed like he had a full chest and warm colors hiding his true, solemn personality. His eyes were replaced with jewels so no one could see his dying soul in the background, he replaced Damian's spiked teeth with normal ones so his words would be tamer. 

This is how God created him.

Damian sniffled, and he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. He fished a finger inside his collar, it hooking onto a faded silver chain, and pulled on it from there while his other hand unbuttoned the outer coat of his suit. He walked inside, to see his father in the doorway, looking pale with sunken eyes. It only took him a moment, just a split second to hide his soul behind the jeweled eyes and to sand down his sharp teeth so his words would be tamer. 

But he had no time to hide his poor, twisted and vengeful heart. 

His heart left a certain metallic jingle in his ears, one that was his slow, dying heartbeat. With cautious hands, he lifted his heart inch by inch and concealed it behind his clothes. "You look sick," Damian said in a sarcastic tone. Bruce shook his head with a small smile on his face, that quickly faded as he walked to his son. 

"Damian, you are going to see a Therapist. Please try to understand, I care for you, and these people that I am going to hire are going to give the help that I can't." Damian went right into thinking about this opportunity. He liked the hole in his chest, even if it meant that he would be bleeding for the rest of his life. It was a remnant, a memory of what he held closest to him. If he patched it up with flesh and donated blood, he was so afraid that he would forget, and move on. 

He made a promise that he would never forget. Ever. 

Bruce said his goodbyes and quickly left after that. Damian knew in his own, dysfunctional little way, in his dysfunctional little heart, his father loved him. But now nothing mattered about fatherly love or statues with holes in their heart. What mattered right now is Damian's promise. 

His promise to never forget. 

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He saw her tears fall from her beautiful eyes, while he laid on the elevated rock that she dragged him on. He used all of his strength to move his arms and twist his torso without coughing up his campfire dinner. He lifted his hand, and that's when she noticed that he was actually moving. She put a hand on his chest and immediately, even a little forcefully pushed him down. And when she made her mind, there was nothing anyone could do about it. And not that she was bossy, but she aspired to be something great someday. 

"If it makes you feel any better, then I will never forget you," Damian said, his voice surprisingly low and fierce as if these were the truest and most important words he had ever said in his life. And to her, it was a smaller, more subtle gesture of kindness. To him, just another enforcement for his promise. "Then I'll promise too. I mean, you're the type of guy that no one can really forget." Damian gave more of a light-hearted laugh as her tears dried. As they both stopped giggling like, well, children, they settled down. 

"This is beautiful." She said. Her words were full of wonder as if her mind were strapped to a little cord, keeping her from going to other worlds, and the cord was snapped years ago. "Yeah." He said as he looked at her. Her body and face were illuminated by the stars in the perfect places, her hair being perfectly still, and her eyes remained to be covered by her eyelids. He looked at something much more beautiful than round hot balls of burning fuel millions of light years away. 

He had a crush on you since the first week- And no, he didn't believe in love at first sight, but it happened to him and he just needed to find it out, in himself. 

You two must've noticed this at the same time, because you both turned your heads to hear if there was anything else alive on this planet. No crickets, no wind, no soft coos of resting mother birds laying atop her children. Even the Earth seemed to stop singing lullabies. It wasn't very eerie, but the silence was deafening and everything seemed to be alive and dead at the same time. You two just silently accepted the moment- Because that's all you two could do. 

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And that is when Bruce realized that his son was walking on a cliff's edge. The ground being the world around him, and the deep, dark, scary pit being insanity trying to hug him with sadistically kind arms.


	5. Chapter Five: The Smell of Coffee and the Sweet Taste of Strawberries

After the incident in the camp, we went home after a week of hiking and fishing. I have to admit, I like the city better. Even if it had it's criminals and prostitutes and noise, it was better than the deafening silence and the skinny tears. I think that she had the same point of view. And as the last desperate reaches of light got covered by the clouds, together we walked down the street, both doing our Sunday routine. Go to a cafe, chat, and have a lazy and relaxing day, because God knew that we both needed it. 

We had a special spot that we both liked to go to. It was called "Cafe Rustic". It was as simple as that. (Y/N) knew some of the people there, so we would always get discounts on our coffee, and the paparazzi couldn't find me. Simply because they wouldn't ever think of Damian Wayne going to a small business cafe. So for the both of us, it worked out very well. Our feet were pounding the concrete, the dog tags in my shirt making a muffled heartbeat. Muffled, but alive. 

The angels saw us and started to cry, because one of their tears fell right on Miss Classy's nose. A tear fell from one's cheek, and then they began to sob as we were soaked in their tears by the time we got to the cafe. We opened the door, and the ambiance changed. 

Do you ever get that feeling when you get off of a plane, and you feel a rush of familiarity and unfamiliarity at the same time? That's what I felt whenever I came in here. There was always a different brew of coffee, but at the same time, there would always be the smell of strawberries. Something new and different each time we stepped through the glass door. Smooth jazz was playing in the background, the soft melodic tones mixing well with the strong harmony and beat, the music was the canvas of pure beauty and the ambient light was the paint. 

We both walked in, shaking our clothes off while she ordered our drinks and treats and I took the seat in the very corner. She came with two giant cups of black coffee, and a huge strawberry muffin. We both like straight black coffee. She set the muffin down on the table while I helped her with the coffee, and after we were settled we just looked out the window for awhile. It wasn't awkward nor was it comfortable. It was just something. She decided to break the "Just something." Silence after a while, she muttered: "I love the rain." Her breath slightly fogged up the glass, in a perfect circle. 

She looked out onto the street, and so did I. Well, I tried, but I kept looking at her. This is after the first week I met her, remember? Huge crush. And I really feel like crush couldn't describe it, it wasn't some kiddy love. I was always such a mature person, so when I developed these feelings, I guess I got a deep understanding of her. Not only love but a deep understanding. And you are asking how a little kid knew so much about love, it seems impossible. Trust me, it is very possible. 

Because you don't really know you have something so great until you lose it. 

Her lips touched her cup as she took a sip of the warm liquid inside of it after she said: "What should be done after this?" I groaned as I drank my coffee, and said "Sleeeeeep." She smiled and looked down, she said "Maybe we can just look at the rain in my house. I know that the owners of this shop don't like people overstaying their welcome, they just got robbed a couple of months ago." I nodded my head, remembering the sirens over in this area, thinking that the police could handle it. 'Damn it!' I thought, quickly making my decision. "That sounds nice. Can I take a nap? Being a Robin can take a hella lot out of you." The last part I mumbled suspiciously, but we were the only ones there in the shop. "Yeah, I get it. I have soft blankets, too. With fluffy pillows, and more coffee, and strawberries, and... Hey, can I take that nap with you?" I chuckled as we finished our coffee and sprinted to her house. 

She had an adoptive family, although she openly admits, this was really no family. The parents were on a verge of a divorce, and her two siblings were either too young or too old to care. She didn't even care. And before you think that's cold of her to not care, she has only known this family for about two years, and there was little to no time for any type of family relation commencing, that was one of the main reasons for the divorce.

She said even in her... past family it was already starting to tear apart by the seams. She was planning to go with her dad, her mother never really was there for her. She just used to flirt around with other men, and secretly, my father put her on a Red Light District watch. But even that was too scary to tell (Y/N). Her father, though, I met him. He was a very regal and valiant man, a war hero slightly worn down, out of his prime, but still, a great monument to behold. He, as I hate to admit it, was a better role model than my father. This man was kind and stern and solemn, he would only trust his daughter. That's because she was the only person that he had that wouldn't cheat him for something better. I met him in an interrogation or more like a questioning of multiple civilians. Joker blew up their apartment building.

It was also like that with (Y/N) and I. She was the only one that I could really trust, even back then when I first met her. I could pour out all of my secrets, all the little frustrations in life, and even the big like I am doing with this book. She was a living, breathing book, filled with wonder and imagination and tragedy and need. Each page was written by the most wonderful poet, herself, and to the secrets, I told her, she would write with the utmost urgency. I could tell that she was a person that actually cared. When I would share my distress with anyone else in my wretched family, they would give me the cold shoulder, but (Y/N) would give me a warm hug. Also, side note, she was the only person who I let hug me. 

Anyone else I would bite. 

We laid on her couch, and as I recall it was very comfy. It was cushiony and soft, and with the soft blankets, it felt like I was being wrapped in a cocoon. I heard the soft patter of the angels' tears, and she fell asleep in my arms, and I feel asleep in hers.

No one came home that night.


	6. Chapter Six: Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Reality was always something that hurt the most when you could go to something better, like if you could escape it. If you could have the taste of imaginary freedom, just one drop of it's sweet nectar, you are hooked from that day forward. All of the important memories in your life begin to fade away, the voices and eyes staring at you start to grow fuzzy and dark. This causes a filter to be set on your mind- Or more like a type of insanity that distorts your mind into seeing that reality is evil and escaping it, what was right is now wrong, what was blood is now water. Many poor minds, all around the world have tasted the sweet nectar of freedom.

And they have grown insane.

Damian Wayne, the boy with pale skin, green eyes, and jet black hair was once alive and saw that dark was dark and that blood was blood. But now his skin grew near his bones, his green eyes became less fierce and his hair drooped. He was headed on the same track as everyone else that tasted this freedom nectar, when this nectar was really just blood, sweat and tears shed from the time that others, like Damian, have said goodbye to reality for the last time. The nectar that they shed was the last glimpse of reality, that they eagerly pushed away as they roamed the sadistic and welcoming fields of insanity.

For Damian, this escape was the book he wrote. But the escape is only a portal into something greater, the fields of freedom. And these fields were the past, he dwelled on images of your face, he wanted to savor, one last time, the touch of your skin or hair, he wanted to bathe in the generous look you gave him, he wanted to be held tight in the ropes of your arms. He needed that, so very badly, but reality would not give the things that he so desperately needed to him. Each tiny, cursive word to him was as close as he could get to you, he loved you so much and never got to say it. That's the part that really got him where it hurts. Once, just once, he was so close to kissing you, but it was too much of a risk to be seen. To be heard. To be sniffed out not only by his family, but by the press, the public... By everyone.

He never got to say that he loved you.

He had tried his hardest to resist the cold grips of insanity, but they were too strong, and he was only a boy. Not anything else, just a weak boy who had fallen to the heels of love and was being dragged away by those cold grips of insanity. There was just a point where he knew he just had to give up, like when a predator catches it's prey. It's useless, and all the while you hate yourself for being the prey, for being so helpless against the thing that is killing you. The thing that is so sharply sinking it's teeth into your neck, and you just have to lay down and bleed to death. So when he was on patrol, when no one was watching him, he visited Arkham Asylum, "For checking on the Joker. I want to see if he's still there, that's all." And before Damian's father could respond, he cut the wire out and took it off. He looked at it, the little piece of plastic holding little sentimental value.

So he threw it away.

It hit the snow covered ground beneath him, beginning its journey to being frozen over by the cold frost. It reminded him of a predator hunting prey, it was something that was inevitable and it was something that no one could help. Nature, like insanity and love, was a force to be reckoned with. You could be emotionally crippled and never love again, it would force you to death. If you were insane, you could never have a normal life again. If you blocked yourself from nature, the rest of your flesh and bone would decay. Without these forces of life, you would die. And it makes you think, of how small and insignificant we are, how Insanity and love and nature are the only things keeping us alive, like life support in a hospital. It really is pathetic.

He was walking casually on the rooftops, trying to suppress the need to actually do something. He wanted to do justice unto the people who deserved it, he wanted to clean the filth in this city, but these were only wants. What he needed right now was to focus on himself. Everyone told him- He was insane. Or on the path to insanity, or such a poor boy. But no one actually did anything to help him, so he was going to help himself. He was going to get advice, and no other person to get better advice than from the big man himself- Not Batman. He was as clueless about insanity as the rest of the sane, but the big. Man. Himself. The Joker.

Batman admitted that once he first saw the Joker, he was appalled. And Damian was a little shocked when he first saw him, but not in the way he was prepared and warned for. The Joker was a old monument, with old, withered white skin and tousled green hair and chapped red lips. But what shook him was the insanity and sadness in his eyes- Damian got the insanity, it was Joker's main presentation in his crime. Damian even could make a plausible explanation for the sadness. It was a trick for pity. It worked with Quinzel, it worked with hostages, it worked with many people. But he would not allow it to work with him. But now, now was a different situation. Damian new where he was coming from, the sadness wasn't from trickery. It was genuine. Insanity was a cage seldom people got out of, while the world taunts you with it's freedom.

It was torture.

And Damian never again mocked the Joker, he would leave it up to his brothers to carry that small, insignificant task. His father was too serious to mock anyone. Damian's feet were reckless on the rooftop he was walking on, not in the sense that he might slip and fall, but his feet were loud. An assassin would shake his head at him, he was raised better than that. Damian then heard another person, an assassin's skill he did keep. His ears were still sharp at the age of eighteen. 

It was a familiar sound, a man's breath, one with a full chest and big lungs. He tried to keep his breath back, but could not do so, he must've ran a long way to get here. Damian also heard the sharp metallic clink of metal against Kevlar, leather rubbing against cotton. It was Jason. Not Bruce, his cape made a whooshing sound, and the rest was silent, like everyone else except for Grayson. Grayson, like Jason and Bruce, had their own special sounds. Grayson's sound was just lean muscle against thin, under protective spandex. 

Damian stopped, and turned around. His body language didn't show anything, really. "What the fuck?! Damian, we need you back at the cave!" Jason nearly shouted, and he would have if it weren't for the resting people below their feet. The whole city might hear him if he actually raised his voice. "Why? Just so I can sit there and play Robin my whole life? Is there any emergency for me to respond to?" Damian spoke his peace, in a solitary and calm manner, but with just enough venom to also carry a message of warning to anyone that crossed him. Jason remained as silent as the snow falling from the sky, his face almost purple from his pride, not willing anytime soon to accept defeat from a eighteen-year-old that just proved a point that he couldn't argue with. 

And the part that sickened Jason the most is that he could relate to Damian, he knew what he felt like. Jason clenched his jaw, and with the little grace he held, he left without a word. Damian, as if the whole occurrence never happened, turned around again and continued his journey. He had a motorcycle if he needed it, but there was no rush. It was silent, if there was a stray cat's screech or a car's honk, everyone in that damn city would hear it, it's echo radiating throughout the neighborhood like the sun when there were no clouds in the sky. He liked walking, especially when the air was crisp and dry and cold, when the only thing keeping him warm were the clothes on his back and the pale light given to him by the moon. After a while, he finally arrived to Arkham Asylum, and he didn't need to explain his case. The guards just let him in and told him what cell the Joker was staying in. He guessed that Batman visited the Joker frequently, and since he was a Robin, everyone expected him to do the same. 

Oh, how Damian hated expectations. 

The guards themselves opened the door for him, and the Joker was sitting in a chair, under a cheap ceiling light, playing cards with himself and a imaginary friend. Damian took the place of that invisible person, waving his hand at the guards, and they closed the door, giving him some privacy. The Joker chuckled, stopped playing cards, and sat his elbows on the table and his chin on his knuckles. "I need your... inquiry." Joker laughed somewhere in between a chuckle and a shout, before he said in his old voice "Oh, well, what do you need? Dr. Joker is always here to help." Damian shook his head, what was he thinking? But, since he was already here, he wanted to get this over with. 

People have always noticed something about Damian, he never liked anything to go unfinished. He didn't want to be a coward, he hated running. "I need advice, that no one else can give. Everyone doesn't understand." And when Damian Wayne, the fearless, strong young man started to break down in front of the Joker, he knew that Damian was being serious. "You got messed up, somewhere along the line, didn't ya'?" Damian nodded his head, while he sifted his hands through his hair that never seemed to cooperate with him. "Who was it? I know that you couldn't mess yourself up from the inside. It takes someone else to do that to you. Did they hurt you?" Damian held his head in his hands for a moment, you were only fifteen. Fifteen, an age too young to leave this Earth without his say. 

"Oh, I see now." Joker elongated the "Oh," but not in a mocking manner. Joker understood. "It was a girl. What'd she do? Leave you for someone better?" Damian looked up, his eyes filled with sadness, but not the plain ol' primary basic, it was something else. See, there are different types of emotions, like different types of paints. There were the three primaries: Anger for red, happiness for yellow, and sadness for blue. Damian's sadness was more of a grayish type of blue, his sadness was withered and softer, but it was still there, as if it were with him for some time. Damian's color represented a Gotham sky on a cloudy day: The colorful, bright blue sky being covered by a blanket of grey that seemed like an omen, a curse, and it would never go away. Damian was slowly losing his green eyes and his black hair and his pale skin, and he was losing it to the color grey. 

"Close. She's..." Damian took a long time to finish his sentence, but the Joker was patient. He had all the time in the world, he was locked in a cell with no real intention of getting out before helping this poor boy. "Dead." Joker just stared at him, dumbfounded, before he continued "I had intention of marrying this woman when I was older. I met her when I first came to the Americas, I was seven." Damian finished his sentence curtly, bitterly, as if it were all his fault. "Kid, if there was one thing that I could name in this world that contributed to my insanity, it would be love. It's something that we cling onto, that's so very dangerous, but we need it in order to survive. The irony, am I right?" Damian grew a small smile at the Joker's last statement, while it quickly faded away. Another battle lost, Damian's lips now faded to a shade of grey. 

In the history of Damian's mind, he lost many battles. The Joker continued. "I don't know who she was, but she must've been wonderful. I mean, she was one person that could actually impress you. That takes balls, kiddo. But..." Joker ended his sentence with a mysterious note and resumed it with a solemn one. "Love can make you go to the deepest depth of darkness and anger." 

That's how the Joker ended the conversation, but before Damian left, he heard Joker mumble something to himself. He was so very glad that he had an assassin's ears. "Kid, if we've met under very different circumstances, we might've been friends." 

Damian could not have agreed more with that statement.


	7. Chapter Seven: Trapped

It started with the faint sound of gravel, little rocks and dirt falling on wood, he felt enclosed and cozy. Cold but burning. He squirmed, and he opened his eyes. It was dark all around him. It was stuffy, he could barely breathe, but what he did breathe in brought panicked tears to his eyes. It was your scent. He couldn't put the name to it- No one could. It was your own familiar scent, trapped in this box six feet underground. He wanted to puke, but at the same time, the only thing keeping him from doing so, was you. It was so utterly twisted that no man, woman or child could comprehend it. Even he, Damian Wayne, neither man, woman or child, but a twisted, emotionally crippled monster, couldn't comprehend the situation. 

With a slight click, the box lit up, due to Damian's struggling, he turned on a flashlight that was left for him. It illuminated everything, including your cold corpse. And it was amazing, you looked like sleeping beauty, as if you could wake up from your sleep if he kissed you, and you would wake up, and the first thing that you would give to him a long stare full of warmness and love, just like in the fairy tales, and you two would live happily ever after in your little coffin. Sure, it was in a coffin, but if you were to actually wake up, you would die in that suffocating little box together. Accepting his fate a little while after, Damian cried. He sobbed, and he punched and kicked and went insane. 

He covered his eyes with his left hand, trying to stop the tears coming out of his eyes. In the other hand, it has seemingly grown its own mind, started to hold yours. The warmth, the pumping blood, and aliveness from Damian's hand warmed up yours, that scent, your angelic look being too much as he peeked through his fingers once in awhile. The calm after his insane, sobbing storm was silent, he didn't say a word. There were none that needed to be said. Before, of course, he actually started to talk to you. He figured that this would be the closest that he could ever possibly get to you, in the most veracious, crippled, twisted way, and he might as well use the opportunities that are given to him. "You know, I loved-" Damian stopped himself. Loved? 

People always say something past tense when describing a dead loved one. Yes, they are gone from this Earth, but their memory is fresh in your mind, your love, even if there are only traces of it left, are still there. So, as painful as it may seem, you should use present tense terms, shouldn't you?

"I love you. With all of my heart, too. I knew you since you were seven, and every second of that was heaven. But..." Damian sighed. He knew that it wasn't good to talk to a corpse, but he was going to anyways, because talking to a therapist wasn't any help, and at least this had an effect on him. "It's been hell without you. I get treated well, the work is easy, being Robin is normal as always, but it just isn't the same without you. You are a factor in my life that can never really go away." Damian chuckled, his left hand still on his face, covering his eyes from seemingly nothing, as there was nothing to look at except your face and the cloth box you were trapped in. 

"I wanted to marry you. At first, it was a silly thing; Like puppy love but on a deeper level, if you get what I mean. Not really puppy love, and not exactly love at first sight, either. I just understood you, and you understood me. I think- I think that's what made me want to marry you in the first damn place. But then, I actually wanted to ask you when we were in our twenties. A distant future in my mind, twenty-five would be a perfect time to marry. I had it all planned out." Damian's voice grew hoarse and sad, he no longer had any walls to trap him inside of his body, no shield to protect him, no ice to melt. He had nothing. Sure, he had a home and a family to amuse him, but these things were nothing compared to you. You were his home, and his family never understood him like you did. You were all the family that he needed. 

Damian decided to stop talking, his head was growing drowsy from the lack of oxygen. He thought that it was a nice way to die, to just fall asleep by your love for the last time, not being able to speak, but to think of all the wonderful times that you spent with them. In particular, one flashback played in his head, and it was nothing special, but nonetheless he was grateful to have one last image of you to savor in before he moved on. 

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Damian asked you to come over for a movie night, you both had these once in awhile in Damian's movie theater, although you both really liked operas too. You came over with pajamas, mainly just a tank top and sweatpants, and he supplied you both with more than enough snacks to eat. You both picked the movie "Casablanca," a black and white film that you both loved to put on when there was nothing else to watch. The movie played on, each image in Damian's mind crystal clear. He turned his head, to see you, intently watching the movie, the light directly hitting itself in all of the perfect angles on your face. You always seemed to be so perfect, if that were his own initial bias, or if everyone else thought the same, he would never know. But what he knew for sure is that he loved you more than any black and white film, and any person in this world could never replace you. 

"Hey, Damian?" He looked at her, and she was looking at him. Something was on her mind, Damian could easily tell. Anyone could easily say that once they've had a deep connection with someone, for so long, the other person can tell when something is wrong, on the spot. This was especially the case for Damian. By that time, Damian prepared himself for the worst, and he slung a arm around your shoulders, and he enclosed you in a warm, inviting space. "What is it?" You drew a long breath, and sighed, taking a hold of Damian's arm, the arm the was slung around you, and you nuzzled into his shoulder. This isn't what normal friends do, but you two were way past the boundary of being in any normal friendship. 

"Am... Would I be a good wife? Er, well, the question is, will anyone really love me? I sometimes worry so much that I'll remain alone. And I know it's a silly fear, I know that, and I tell myself that over and over, but I still fear. Sorry, I think the movie got me like this." One thing that you did was apologize too much, and Damian accepted the fact that it was just a part of you, but when he was younger it used to bug the hell out of him. What he wanted to say was "I love you, and you will eventually be a wife, that's for sure. My wife." He wanted to whisper that in her ear so badly. And he almost did, his chest was huffed as if he was going to say something, but he held back on his instincts. His father always told him to think before he acted. 

His chest was huffed alright, and he chuckled. He said "You'll be fine. It really is a silly fear."

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His dying subconscious heard a loud ringing, as the coffin door was opened for him, bright light shining in his eyes, his body position exactly the same as he left it. He was holding your hand and covering his eyes, left barely breathing with seconds of life left, replenished. Then he had minutes of life left, then hours, then days, then weeks, after that, months years and decades. And instead of him being grateful, he felt sad, because that meant more time between the two of you. More space. 

The last thing he heard were ambulance sirens.


	8. Chapter Eight: Freed from Darkess, but Still Held Hostage in a Poetic Cage

Everyone was surrounding him. Damian Wayne. The boy who has been buried alive, at the side of his best friend that had died three years ago. No one but his father saw the position he was in, holding your hand, and in a way, it was a blessing. Damian's pride would be shattered if anyone really knew that he still loved you, even after you died. People already pitied him for so many things, he didn't want this to be added to the long list. One by one, they started to leave, all except Bruce. At the very least the family respected each other's privacy, and these were one of those moments where the two, father and son, Bruce and Damian, Batman and Robin, so desperately needed it. 

Although Damian just got his own apartment, worked a job independently, and called every week, they have been distant, not only for those reasons either. It was the three year anniversary of your death, on the dot when he was buried next to you. Now, it was the day after that, technically. It was one O'clock in the morning, Bruce was always up at this hour, for reasons that no one in his family ever needed to explain. Bruce was in a trance, his mind going a million miles per hour, he stared at the tiled hospital floor. "Father..." Damian's raspy voice spoke out, as he continued "Why am I in the hospital?" Bruce gave his son a long look, before he said "You'll be out soon, we just... Found you with little oxygen left to breathe. Did you see who did this?" Bruce asked, avoiding the topic that they so desperately needed privacy for. "No, I didn't see who did it." Bruce sighed, got up, and walked to the window by Damian's hospital bed. 

Bruce was never the type to stalk around something, but in moments like this, he would try, to be honest, but lay the information on gently. His son's sanity was at stake, and insanity was the cage. But Bruce was trapped in this cage too, from the scars left long ago in his life. But Damian's scars were fresh, he looked like he was marred apart by the devil himself. 

Bruce almost broke the window sill from gripping it too tightly, and he said in a grim manner "We've all lost people, and the scars they have given us always seem to be fresh, don't they?" Bruce was speaking Damian's language. Of course, they were the only ones actually speaking this language in the entire world, but at least they understood each other clearly. Damian let out a hum, his throat was too dry, and he didn't have the heart to speak. He was too exhausted. So right now, all of his energy was being focused on listening to his father's poetic antics. "She was your world, wasn't she? It was like that with my parents, they were my world, and when it was taken from me, I had to build my own, little twisted world in a way of coping. And you refuse to build your own world, Damian." Damian opened his eyes, and looked at his father. His father was staring right back at him, his eyes looked more remorseful, sad. Not angry, or vengeful. 

"If I build my own world on the ash of my old one, the ash will eventually fade into the void that is my soul, she will be forgotten if I build another one. I would rather starve, covered in those very ashes then use the dust that I am covered in to build another era. I am going against everything, father. Nature, sanity, hate, all in the name of insanity and love, and I do hope you can support me during my battles. Now, go. I want to rest." Damian countered, he closed his eyes again, and tuned everything out of his mind. 

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He heard the slight click of a closing door, and he felt completely safe. He tried his hardest to doze off, and he eventually did after a couple hours of consciously tossing and turning. But the last thing he actually saw in his mind's eye was volcanic ash falling, drifting from the grey sky. This image transitioned into his dreams, as his sleeping mind saw a figure buried in the very ash that was falling in the sky. He walked slowly towards it, a spring coiling itself in his gut, he had a feeling that it was his mother- It was a feminine figure that was outlined. He crouched down, and with gentle swipes, he wiped the ash off of the face of this body. He knew it was a corpse, it wasn't breathing. But common sense and the laws of life and death did not exist in dreams, and if they did, they were bent to the point of snapping. 

It was you, still dressed in the clothes that you wore in your coffin, a white lace dress with a white headband and a blue ribbon around your waist. Damian was kind of shocked, but that shock was quickly eaten by the riptide of love and sadness. He put a shaky hand on your face, and you opened your eyes, started to breathe, and you smiled. You gave him a look of warmth, like how Princess Aurora did to Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty. "Oh, how I missed that smile so." Damian said, a smile of his own forming on his lips, albeit small. He wasn't one for smiles, unless they were given to you. And even then you had to earn them. 

You did the same, as you slid a hand up to his face. That lasted for a couple of seconds, before you sat up and got on your knees, like he was doing. You were still smiling, but tears of joy were falling from your eyes. You quickly hugged him, tightly, he could feel the soggy, sappy emotion in this moment, but he just needed to accept it. He returned the hug, feeling your chest against his, your arms tightly spun around his back and his arms around yours. "Damian, I don't care how long it takes, but I'll wait for you. I promise. Just please," Everything started to heat up around him as he took his head out of the crook in your neck, and what he saw was appalling. Demons were surrounding you two, their gooey, black faces and red eyes peering down at you. He looked back at you, and you were no longer in your nice dress and headband. You were in rags, shackles closing themselves and intertwining with chains, around your legs ankles and arms. "Please get me out when you come." 

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Damian gasped as he sat up quickly, putting a heart on his chest. Another nightmare plagued his mind that night, and thank goodness no one was there to witness it.


	9. Chapter Nine: A Dreamer Who Wants to Dream Alone

Damian sighed, the black umbrellas and security guards just barely enough to hide the flashes of bright cameras and the nosy reporters, just doing their job. He didn't want to blame anyone. He didn't want to get mad. He didn't want to do anything. He walked down the aisle, being trapped in a cage of muscles on steroids and black suits, and he entered a black limo. As he rode with Alfred, who was dead silent, it began to rain, very heavily. But the nostalgia of a memory came into Damian's view, that blocked out any care or worry for Alfred, and the details of his held breath or his straight-as-an-arrow posture flew from his mind. He visibly relaxed when he thought of you, it wasn't just some pastime, but it was a method that helped him get closer to you. As close as he could get, anyways.

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You were eleven. He was twelve. It was raining, and you were sick. When he got the news, the inside of him panicked, his stomach clenched and his jaw tightened. His father told him that it was just a flu virus, and he could visit you as long as he wanted. As long as it didn't interfere with his work, he was fine with, really, anything. Damian thought of you very fondly, and when you had to think fondly of someone, you had to care for them. And when you cared for them, you had to worry about them, too. So, as quick as he could without looking too panicked, (He still had a reputation to uphold, after all), and he went to the manor library. You liked all of their books, so he just picked out a random book from a random shelf, and went along his way. He just made sure that the book was poetic, he loved reading out poetry.

Alfred was waiting outside, anticipating for this to happen once he got the news of your illness, so no words needed to be said. Alfred thought that everything was relaxed and calm in the car, but it was the complete opposite. Damian's mind was going a million miles per hour, while he kept on a cold masquerade mask to hide his true emotions. He only took off said mask when he was around you, his skin would be slightly layered in sweat, and it would have to get used to the nip of the cold air around it, but he didn't mind it. As long as he could take that mask off. It was a very stupid mask in his opinion, but it was forced on his face for almost the whole of his life. Once he met you, he could take it off, and each time he felt scared. It was an instinct drilled into his brain to be scared, no, absolutely petrified of emotion, not even mentioning having to actually show it.

He headed to your house and knocked on the solid wooden door. It was quickly opened, your adoptive mother in the frame. "Oh, Damian, (Y/N)'s sick. Come back another time?" Damian shook his head, responding "That's why I came, ma'am. I want to read to her." Damian gestured to the book in his hand, and the woman huffed. The thin, tall woman was not related to you, she looked withered and dry. Her cheeks were inwards to the point of being borderline hollow, her eyes were sunken with tire and grief. Her hair used to be brown, but she dyed it a deep burgundy just to get catcalls from her co-workers in her office. Again, one of the main reasons for the divorce in your adoptive family. She was too pale, and everything from head to toe on her looked very bland. She would snap at you if you did the tiniest thing to bother her, but that's what you get from a cruel person. She mumbled to herself "You better not touch her." Before she let Damian in and walked outside. This was usually the time she went to work.

You had an older adoptive sister that looked like her mother, but her cheeks were a bit plumper, her eyes not as sunken and sharp, her voice gentle and not so cruel, her hair still at the natural color of brown. She was holding a baby, not hers of course, but the mothers. It always baffled you two, if they just wanted children, they could've had them, so why did they adopt you? You didn't say anything because you were in no place to complain. This mean woman gave you a home, food and a bed.

Damian nodded to the young woman, holding the baby, before he silently shuffled to your room, the rain now pounding against the house like hands against a drum. He opened the door to your room, very slowly, very silently, so he would not disturb you as much, and he closed the door behind him. Damian looked around the room and breathed in your familiar scent as if it were oxygen, and he were a flame. They can't survive without each other for very long. Well, the fire can't, but the oxygen will always be there as if the little flame was never birthed into this world.

"Damian?" You asked, you didn't even need to look at him to know that the boy in your room was Damian Wayne. That's what happens when you know someone for a long time. You knew him specifically by his medium-pitched sniffles, (You always seemed to notice the bigger the person, the deeper the sniffle, like how most voices work), or how his shoes would give off a certain clack on the floor that no one in your family could really replicate. He would also take a deep breath in your room, if it were a habit that he never noticed or a little gesture that he liked to act out on purpose, you would never know. "Yeah, it's me. I found out that you were sick, so I just wanted to read to you." When he said that, you smiled to yourself, while Damian pulled a chair and started to look at the cover of the book. Damian's face went pale.

See, when he met you, he wanted to write a book about poems. Poems about you. This book, his book of poems, his first book dedicated to you, was full of his love for you. Sensitive things, too many sensitive, emotional things, that simply would break his mask. It would be humiliation. So, his simple solution was to borrow another book, so he said "Uh... I don't like this book," This statement wasn't entirely a lie. "Can I borrow another one?" You groaned a bit, but said "Please? I won't listen to it, I promise. I might go to sleep in the next couple of minutes, actually." Damian always gave into your pleas, because they were so small. So incredibly rare, that he saw it fit to give in at those very rare times.

He huffed before he flipped to a random page and started to read. And somehow, you managed to stay awake through the whole thing, because the emotion in Damian's voice silently intrigued you. And the whole entire time he read to you, he felt scared. Vulnerable. He felt like a petrified puppy on the streets, slowly starving to death, not knowing the slightest idea of what to do. But when you said "This guy... I like him. He really writes nicely. Say, can you read more of him to me tomorrow?" He felt calmer. Something about you always made him very calm. He whispered a slight "Yes," Before you dozed off. He properly tucked you in, seeing your weakened, but peaceful body breathing steadily. Once he made sure that you were in a deep sleep, he kissed you on your temple, and instead of feeling relief, or joy, he felt sadness. Kisses that you gave when the other person was asleep didn't count.

They didn't count at all.


	10. Chapter Ten: Bravery Requires Cowardice

Damian was introduced into his apartment like a wild animal being reintroduced into it's natural habitat; Everyone was careful, silent, even though they were supposed to be at the manor. They spiked his house, not out of creepiness, but out of love. The tension in the air was like a bridge about to collapse or a string about to snap. Everything was staring at him, it seemed, even his painting's eyes seemed to follow him. He felt tense, being deprived of privacy, or invaded of his tranquility. And in a way, Damian's room was his natural habitat, which also meant that Damian was a animal, specifically born in a cage. Damian was neither zoo or wild animal, but he didn't really care. He was taught to keep the important things in his brain. 

But he was never taught how to prioritize, therefore, he always thought of you. The most important thing in his mind. 

Damian looked around his room, warily, with tire. He forced his feet to walk over to his nightstand, to absently grab a pen, but when the pen was in his hands, he stopped, and looked at it. It was just a normal fountain pen, he had used it for years, though, the ends were a bit worn and it was running out of ink, but he could just replace the ink. And it was kind of cheesy, when he thought of how he got that pen, or maybe he thought it was cheesy of how he treasured it so much. 

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You both were having a sleepover together, a very normal occurrence, but it was right after school, so homework was imminent. You two were in Damian's room, you were both sitting on his bed. Suddenly, but not so dramatically, Damian's pen had run out of ink, but he had a very bad day, so the anger in his soul was running under his skin. 

When Damian was angry, even to you sometimes, he could be an ass. So, you just steered clear of him for a little while, gave him reassuring smiles, and talked to him in a calming voice but it wasn't really enough, so when his pen ran out of ink, he stood up, and he threw it as hard as he could at the wall and did his best to hold back a scream. "Damian," You pleaded, "Sit down. We can do homework later, why don't we just read for a little while? Perfect weather for reading, actually..." Damian nodded his head and sat down on his bed with a rush, so the springs slightly squeaked underneath him, while you rubbed his back for a couple of seconds. After those couple of seconds, you got up, left the room shortly (You didn't want to leave Damian in a room by himself when he was angry. You were a witness of the events that occurred in that situation, and the result wasn't pretty. In fact, it was quite ugly), and got back with two giant books held tightly to your chest. It was a habit you never bothered to kill, which left the books slightly warmed and your need to cuddle something satisfied. 

You handed him his favorite book, you just picked a random one for yourself because you wanted to save time. Again, you didn't want to leave an angry Damian in a room all by himself. He took the book with gentle hands, a guilty look now in his eyes, as you noticed, and you began to say "Hey, it's going to be okay. We can rush to do homework tomorrow morning, but for tonight we can just read and sleep. Sound like a good plan?" Damian nodded again, he didn't really want to speak. His jaw was shut tight. He flipped to the first page, and started to read, the only sound in the room was the echo of a passing car or a stray cat's meow. And, of course, the occasional page flip or content sigh from you. 

And the rest of the night was like that, you went to sleep early, which left Damian by himself, covering his eyes with his hands, while occasional growl-sighs escaped his mouth. Eventually, though, sleep did engulf him, and amazingly enough, he had dreams that night, ones mainly about you, but the other ones weren't so nice. Damian's more than traumatic past caught up with him every so often when he closed his eyes. But when he woke up, he found a fountain pen on his bed, a small fortune, a miracle to save him. A small smile formed on his lips, even though this gesture of kindness made his heart throb even more. 

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Damian held the pen for a little while longer, rubbing his fingers over the frame, delicately, as if it were a relic of some sort. And somehow, to him, it was a relic. Not a world famous relic, but it was one that meant so much to him, and relics like that were always close to his heart. When his eyes tired of looking at the pen, when his heart grew too pained and his mind became too fogged with nostalgia and memories, he turned his head, the sun now shining it's rays down into his room, a very rare type of weather in Gotham city. If his sharp ears have not deceived him yet, they certainly have now, because he could hear the happy song of a bird. 

He walked over to his desk, slowly ghosting his fingers over the wooden frame, mindfully avoiding his eyes from the book that he spent so much time on. It gave him shivers, the thought of how that book was his drug and he was the addict, how that book was the lock and he was the key. That book was the light and he was the dark, they would not exist without each other. But the thing about light and darkness, keys and holes, drugs and addicts, is that the factor of inevitability. It was inevitable that they would come into contact, in one way or another. So, losing his will to resist, to break free, Damian sat down in his chair, adjusting his position a couple of times before he got comfy, he opened his book to the next blank page and set his pen down on said paper.

And Damian began to write.


	11. Chapter Eleven: Ink and Paper is All You Need to Die

I had... Minor difficulties in my present life, so that is why I delayed this chapter. Although, being a Robin is never an easy task, events have transpired in my life that even I find impossible to comprehend. But, anyways, I need to relax, and I find that this is my only outlet to do so, since my family spiked my house a couple of days ago. And if you ever read this, to everyone except Grayson and Bruce and Barbara, fuck you. Have you no shame? It now feels like privacy is a luxury that I can't afford in my own Goddamned apartment. Anyways, if there are any microphones in this house still, they will only hear the sound of pen on paper, and pages flipping. I don't know what you wanted to find, but quite frankly, I don't really want to know. 

So, apart from that lovely introduction, this is a book about memories more than present day journalism about my life, much to my therapist's displeasure. But, then again, everyone else wanted me to write this book, so there isn't much to do there. When I write, I usually remember memories as I go, but I had one planned out this time. I think I deserve a sticker for my hard work. 

This memory in particular does not have (Y/N) in it that much, but I'd like to write it down anyways. 

(Y/N) was in the hospital at the time, she was taken hostage by bane and almost every bone in her body was cracked. Her spine was intact, though, which meant when her bones healed, she would walk again. Remember, this is when I was nine and she was eight, but I was so worried for her that I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Anxiety slowly ambushed me like I did my victims when I was still in the League of Assassins, but this time it was like a metal coil was inside of me, and a curled on it's own, or a snake was slithering itself around my chest to the point where I couldn't breathe. And the worst part was that I knew she was going to be okay, I knew she was going to be safe, my father put her in the best medical hands in the city, but my brain always went back to the "If,"'s, which I never usually did. 

So, I was anxetic, weak, hungry and confused by the caring emotion showing itself in my soul, in my actions, I was not in a good place. Once she got out of the hospital, what I saw made my condition even worse, I almost fainted. (Y/N) was wrapped in bandages, but her eyes were the two things that got me the worst. They were full of hurt. Pain, trying to be covered up by a fake happiness. 

I spent some time at her house, both families respected our privacy. Soon after that, though, I left. As I walked the city's old streets, I saw a bush, well, a black one. It was a dead one, the only remnant of a corpse was it's prickly dark thorns. It was surrounding something alive, though. I walked closer, I inched and inched, slowly, cautiously, the anxiety in my soul was far from leaving, although it already over welcomed it's stay long ago. I slowly painted an image in my brain, the familiarity of the deep red petals clearing in my mind. It was a rose, and in it's situation, it was a miracle that it was alive. 

In fact, the rose looked as if it were on the very tip of death, the edges were just starting to wilt, the thorns were growing softer, but the death did not spread throughout it. And the longer I looked at it, the more that snake tightened around my chest, the coil tightened in my stomach and my breathing went from shallow to borderline hyperventilation. I snapped my head away from it and walked home as fast as I could, rushing past Alfred and the rest of the family, I just needed to get to my room, my palace of isolation. When I moved to America, the city life was troubling, even though I had (Y/N). From constant isolation, quietness and tranquility suddenly to no privacy, noisiness and chaos was not the best transition ever.

I rushed to my phone, and with shaky thumbs I dialed in her contact, and as I hastily put the light metal machine up to my ear, each ring that she did not pick up made my heart go even faster. When she did pick up, my heart rate steadily fell back to normal. The first thing she said was "Damian, are you alright?" I chuckled, but it wasn't in my chest, it was a shallow chuckle that almost wasn't there it the first place. Like my soul was pained. 

"Yeah, yeah. Jus... Just needed to hear your voice. Needed to make sure that you were okay." I ran a hand through my black hair, slightly wet from the sweat of stress, my back hunched and my elbows on the desk where I found the phone. I was so relieved and joyous for some odd reason, I was on the brink of shedding tears of joy when I heard her silky voice. And after the call, I regained my spirit and sneaked out of the window in my room. I didn't want to answer to any confused faces then, I didn't like people back then very much. In fact, I don't really like people now. I never liked people.

I went out into the city, bought some dirt with a small planting pot, a watering can and after that I went to that rose, uprooted it, put it in the pot for the time being and I carefully brought it back home. I put the rest of the dirt in the pot, and I watered it immediately. And after that I just sat there, my breath making the rose slightly tremble, and I pondered to myself why I was so nervous when I saw the rose that evening. Then, it hit me like a brick. (Y/N) always smelt so heavenly, no one could place their finger on her scent but it always reminded me of roses, for some odd reason, although it smelt nothing near to a rose. Her scent made me feel all cozy and warmed up, like I was sitting beside a fireplace.

It was one of those fragrances, you know?

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Damian didn't know how, but he always found some way to feel so melancholic after writing in that book. Although not everything in his apartment was completely unpacked, the first thing he took care of was the rose, that he nursed back to health. The thorns on the rose were sharp and the petals were a vibrant red instead of a dull burgundy. Damian sighed a sad sigh, he was disappointed but also content that he has no tears left to shed. He ghosted his knuckles over the soft petals, making it stiff against his flesh before it sunk down again when the warm piece of meat left it's side. 

After that, he got up, went to his bathroom and looked in the mirror. He was surprised that it didn't crack at the mere sight of him. 

He was pale, deep bags were under his eyes, his hair was not shiny, but it was matte, the shine taken out of it, and his eyes were the dullest green he had ever witnessed, they were a borderline grey while the lids of his eyes covered half of them. His lips were cracked as if it were a fine piece of china that was shattered years and years ago, left alone, dusting in the corner of a room before the shine got taken out of that too, just like his hair. Damian, although, felt nothing. He looked at his hands, the very little monsters that have caused so much hate and harm and little love. He thought about punishing himself, by cutting his wrists and adding new scars to his body; It was a very appealing thought, but he rejected the idea away. He had better things to do, little time and lots of places ago, and people would notice. A lot of people would notice. 

And he didn't like being the center of attention. In fact, the very thought of just fading away was so heavenly to him, but that wish would never come true. Women would still throw themselves at the very sight of him, the paparazzi would always find him, his family would always be in the spotlight, dragging him with them whether he liked it or not. 

It was Damian's day off from work, being a Robin, so he just slept. Not entirely the most productive thing in the world and his tire might be a sign of depression, but he didn't care. He just wanted to close his eyes, like he almost did beside you, when he shared your final resting place. 

Oh, how he wished he could just end it.


	12. Chapter Twelve: Ready for Forgiveness, but Vengeance is at Hand

Damian heard his phone ring, the little naivety in his heart thought it was you, but it was quickly extinguished due to the fact that you were dead. At his heart's dismay, he saw that it was his father. He allowed the call to start, while he put his phone up to his ear. "We got the guy that buried you," Bruce didn't even say hello. Alfred would be ashamed. Perhaps the matter was too urgent for formalities, everyone else thought. But for Damian, there was no rush. He didn't describe himself as "Emo," or "Goth," because he felt cold or angry inside. 

He felt like he was dying inside. So no, there was no rush at all. 

And it wasn't some dumb way to say that he was faking it, if he was he would be dressed in black and would be wearing too many studs with mountainous amounts of eye shadow and paler, ear gauges that were the size of planets and a deep, monotone voice that could easily hide the con, the crime he was committing. The crime being that he would be lying about depression, putting a bad name on it, one worse than it already had, and he would be taking the place and putting a disfigured face on for the people that were actually suffering. They hoarded all of the attention to themselves because their fucking hormones were unstable. And of course, there are lots of emos, goths and scenes that really are depressed, but since the other posers fucked it up so bad for them, they are just shrugged off like a joke and not taken seriously. (A/N: I am not saying that all Goths, Emos, Scenes etc. are posers, or doing it for the attention. I am just saying that a couple of people can ruin it for everyone else). 

Damian was one suffering from (Not self-diagnosed) Bi-Polar disorder, Split Personality Disorder, PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, and he was on the verge of forming a Schizophrenic mind. He was fucked up, and only one person other than himself that knew it. His bitchy therapist. But none of that mattered, in the grand scheme of things. What did matter was Damian's mental life. And it wasn't good, the pulse of his soul was slowing down, so his heart felt like it was being stabbed over and over again, like he was cold and hot at the same time, Placebo effect was pounding down on him in the very worst of ways. He took in a breath, and Damian responded "Why? Just so I can watch you interrogate them, make them say all of the tightly held secrets they somehow know about me? In front of the family?" 

Bruce remained silent, somehow, he was the prey and his very son was the predator sniffing him out, but this situation was on a much lesser, mellower scale. It almost made him laugh, the mental image of his Damian having his sharp teeth sink into his own sturdy neck. Then, Damian would carry him off to his den like a fox and a dead chicken between his jaws. As if he were a skinny twig between a dog's jaws. But this was no time for funny thoughts that came up in his mind, no time for formalities, even. "It's okay, Damian. I'll ask broad questions that will get broad results. You know I have the Gift of Gab. You know, you have a silver tongue too. We need to exercise that talent later, though." 

Bruce mumbled the last part to himself, as if Damian was listening to something that he wasn't supposed to hear. Damian only grunted in a response, his eyes now feeling droopy and his throat dry, his jaw willingly screwed shut, his lips stapled together. He never knew that a person's lips could be stapled together, (He didn't even know that staples, or staplers existed until he moved to America), one time he got his lips sewn shut, though. It was punishment tor lashing out in the form of speech, ironically enough. Bruce hung up after that, not even saying goodbye. 

Alfred would be ashamed. 

Damian drove to the Wayne Manor, the giant building would cast a great shadow over the whole city, it seemed, if there was any light to actually create a shadow itself. The clouds were always so dark, not letting the joy of the sun reach a inch of the ground. And the people in Gotham didn't seem to mind, they either got used to the curse that God punished them with, or they rejected the very thing God created for humans to feel happiness, the sun. Damian had a nice car, a nice apartment, a nice job to bore him, a nice, but albeit strange family to entertain him, but with the one he held closest to his soul, he had nothing. 

And the reason why it was soul instead of heart, is because when you died you took his heart with him, six feet underground, detached from the world for all of eternity. And his heart was not with the rotting corpse that was decaying, but hopefully it was in heaven being taken care of by the best of hands, by your hands, hopefully in heaven. Although he could sadly feel none of the happiness you gave his heart, up high in the clouds, he was sure that he could have his heart back in his chest when he died. Or, at least, he would have his heart beating with him in the lake of fire and brimstone, because that is where Damian was sure he was going. Damian was sure that he was going to go to hell for his sins. 

But those were thoughts for another day. Another time when he was old and grey and wrinkled, maybe he would, nay, could, confess his major and terrifying sins to a priest, so maybe, just maybe he could be forgiven. Maybe he could be different from his family, give up his foolish pride and just confess, and be a scared human being, a human being like everyone else and be scared of the same things. Death, life, love, loss. But such fears seemed so pointless to defeat without you by his side, everything seemed so pointless and so grey and so, so bland. It reminded of a saying his mother once threateningly told him, she said: "I put you into this world, and I can take you out of it, my son." Her voice was so shrill and cold, he was sure that she froze his blood, and maybe his very soul. 

He chuckled at the irony of the saying, if he just twisted the words a small bit, it would have said "I put the color into your life, but I can take that color away from you. Not willingly, though!" In his head Damian could hear your voice apologizing profusely, seeming as though you committed the biggest crime in the world without even knowing it. 

Damian walked up the stairs of the mansion, and the door was surprisingly unlocked, with no Alfred to greet him, none of the lights were on, everything seemed gone. Quiet. Haunting, but somehow, this put Damian's mind to a temporary peace, a tranquility that he knew was not going to last long at all. He knew that a hammer was inevitably going to be thrown at his mirror, in one way or another, and it was going to shatter, and the dull remnants were going to sit there on the floor until someone finally noticed his broken soul and coldly put his corpse into the trash can. He made sure that no one was looking when he was in front of the grandfather clock, a paranoia drilled into him by his strict and disciplinary father. 

He opened the grandfather clock and slid inside, closing the false wall behind him and as he slowly made his decent down the dark, dank steps, he undressed and folded his clothes neatly so the now faded colors of his Robin suit would show themselves. These colors would not show themselves with pride, but they would step into the light anyways, like it was a duty. When he, himself, Damian Wayne stepped into the light, all eyes suddenly attacked him with worried glances and held breaths and frozen blood. It was as if time itself stopped, even for a second, before things began to move again. 

After a awkward shuffle or two and a anonymous cough, the villain revealed itself, or more precisely, everyone stepped aside so the villain could be revealed, like curtains being pulled back so a opera could begin. 

"Since when did you get henchmen, Selina?" Bruce questioned, while Damian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on one of the jagged, but somehow comfortable and familiar walls of the Batcave. The woman in revealing spandex tried to be seductive by arching her back to adjust her seating position, but Bruce was having none of that. He slapped Catwoman so hard that he was sure that her jaw almost broke, and everyone flinched at Bruce's sudden ferocity. She whimpered, and she looked at Bruce with resentment and hate.

"I thought we had something, Mr. Knight!"

Selina had stated this sarcastically, which earned her another slap that bruised her cheek in a matter of seconds. Tears formed at her goggled eyes, Bruce's anger only growing more and more, the sudden lust and desire to to kill this whore once and for all becoming too appealing. 

"Not when you try to bury my fucking son! My son! Now I am going to ask you one more time,"

Bruce had many points that he could convey, to prove that they no longer had any relationship, that his son was more important to him than anyone else in the world right now. Bruce became a nightmarish creature, his back arched, his scowl matching his voice, low and deep and ready to strike, and the shadows that were cast on him really put the reputation of the terrifying Batman to a good justice. Now Selina was scared for her life, and she's been tortured before. She's been raped, kidnapped, she has been in the works. But if she has never seen the look of pure rage, even though she couldn't see half of the other's face, she did now. She knew the very definition of rage, now, and it was terrifying. Not even in a good way, not like any strange sex kink. 

Selina feared for her life.

"Tell me everything." 

And then Selina spilled it, just like Bruce had asked. Selina cried and sobbed, and it wasn't even a pretty one. It was a very ugly sob. She told them how she was paid by some unknown organization to do their dirty work for them, how they told her everything she needed to now and ever needed to know about Damian's personal life without learning his name, and how she was given the men required to sedate Damian long enough to actually bury him at his best friends' grave, and even then, Selina said that at the time she didn't know if it was pity or compassion, but she left the flashlight for Damian. 

She just got cold stares from the rest of the family, how could she do something so shallow for money? How was she even a human being? Well, they guessed that's what you got from a money grabbing thief that wasted all of it on milk for the never ending number of her cats. Damian saw no reason to be cold. But then again, he felt no reason to be loving, either. He just grabbed a tissue, and a Batarang from his father's belt, he cut the ropes that bound her to the metal chair she was sitting on, and he gave her the tissue. 

"Go to the police station and tell them everything you told us. And don't even bother tying to run, Nightwing and Red Hood will be watching you," Damian paused his statement before he got confirmation from the two men, and as he resumed, he continued "Don't escape from the jail. Serve your short sentence, I bet the court won't even know what to do with a case like this. Understand?" Damian's words were stern and cold, which everyone expected, but the tone itself he took on surprised everyone, including Bruce, the know it all. Damian's voice was warm, and soft and forgiving. Selina just nodded her head, and ran out of the Batcave as fast as she could. 

Damian was about to leave when Stephanie spoke up and asked "Damian, are you alright?" Damian chuckled and shook his head, right now, he was utterly disgusted by his family. Was it him that caused them to change into these demons? And if he was the influence of this horrible change, it only showed that his family was subject to a weakness that was anything but physical. 

"What monsters have we turned into, Steph?" 

Damian made two apparent flaws in his graceful leave, and the journey to his house. He didn't let Stephanie answer his question but then again, it was more of a rhetorical question than a actual one. This very question left not only Stephanie, but the whole family thinking, about their life decisions the very reasons why they were here in the first place. The second flaw was something much more immature, much more naive, but maybe that was something Damian needed right now. 

He called "Stephanie," "Steph,". But, as he was taught, there was no time even for the smallest of flaws.


	13. Chapter Thirteen: The Fate that Brought Us Here

I just found the person that buried me, and I let her go. I wonder what the old Damian might've been doing. Would he have judged me? I'm pretty sure that he would be beating the new me up right now. And it's not that the new me isn't capable of fighting, but it's the utter hate, rage, and ferocity that the old me can hold, in his soul. And rage can be one of the things that can power someone, trust me, I know from a first person experience. 

Now I am wondering if my best friend, the girl I grew up with, the very woman I first loved and will love forever longer, loved the old me, for who I was. And I ponder on this subject frequently, if she loved me for who I was, or if she changed me through the entire course of our friendship. And I also ponder if our friendship was anything more or anything less, if I took our friendship too seriously and she was just a minor acquaintance, or if we were on the verge of being a couple and I took our friendship too obliviously. Too blindly. 

And sometimes I ponder if I saw our friendship with clarity, the friendship that lasts if we were acquaintances. The friendship that still survives the companionship of a lover, we were two souls that could never seem to be separated from each other for too long. Anyways, this slow buildup is for another memory, and I intend to write this down before I get called in for my patrol shift. My family says that the magic of being a Robin, or any superhero for that matter, was wonderful and it felt amazing to be one. For me it felt more like an extremist office job, working because you have to. If anyone really knew how I felt about being a Robin, then they'd urge me to quit. I don't know what I'd do after my regular job shift ends, my family would disapprove and would see my life filled with void, but at least it wouldn't be the life-dulling routine of kicking people around and mocking them "For the greater good," My life would be void, but at least it would be quiet. It would be tranquil. 

I was fourteen, and she was thirteen. When I was out on patrol, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I answered immediately. No one called me when I was on my patrol shift. My father was breathing very heavily, and in a rushed voice, he said "Damian! It's (Y/N), she got hit by a bus." My world went gray, not as bright as the stars but not as black as an abyss, just like my mind, and my body carried itself to my house, even when it couldn't even run anymore, even when the soles of my feet were numb and my lungs were burning, I couldn't stop. I even dropped my phone, left it, and lost it. I found it two years later, the frame of it rusted, the glass shattered and the inner circuitry decayed like a withering corpse. 

I didn't care about the windows, I just crashed right through them instead of going through the front door. I heard a startled gasp from Alfred, but the rest fell on deaf ears, as I jammed the keys on my father's piano and the grandfather clock moved slowly. I didn't wait for it to move completely, as soon there was a wide enough opening, I slid through it and almost tumbled down the steps afterward. When I got to the cave, (Y/N) was unconscious on an operating table, probably handled by my father with no medical license, but with better hands than any other doctor. Then I knew she was safe, but the image was still horrifying. Blood was everywhere, her blood, on the operating table, on my father's hands, on the tools he used on her. After my father could properly wash the blood off of his hands, he left. 

I walked over to the operating table, and with a shaky hand, I lightly touched her hair, but she absentmindedly leaned into my hand. "Hey Zombie," She said while her eyes were still closed, then after she opened her eyes, I saw that they were glossy from the aftershocks of her morphine high. I sat down, removing my hand from her hair. "Hey, Miss Classy," I greeted back, and I tried my best to be calm but the storm raging inside of me was too strong, and I had to hide my face in the darkness. 

"You probably want to know how I got hit by a bus, huh?" I nodded my head, my face hidden behind a thick curtain of shadows, and she explained the rest to me. She said that there was a little girl walking through the street, and there was a bus on a collision course for that little girl, it seemed. She pushed the girl out of the way, so she could be hit by the bus instead of the little child, who most certainly would have died. 

"Why... How could you be so selfless for another person? A stranger?" I questioned once she was done with her story, and she sighed. She closed her eyes for a little bit, deciding if she should tell me my simple answer, and what I got was anything but simple. Once she told me, I saw that her past was jagged, edged and rough. But somehow, that only sanded her down to her true, beautiful form. "When I told you about my parents..." She cut off her sentence, and she asked "Can we go somewhere more... private?" I nodded, as I carried her to a place that we liked to go, there was nowhere else like it. You know on top of those churches there are those hollow arches that are way high up? We had one that wasn't at a church, but it was actually at our school, and ever since we found it we have decorated it with lights, blankets, and pillows, we bring snacks in our backpacks and we read. We also occasionally watch videos on our phones, but for the most part, we just talk. 

I laid her down on one of the small air mattresses that we owned up at our haven, and she sat herself up. She looked at the moon, and her body slightly shivered as I gave her a blanket. "I lied to you." It was the first thing she said, and the next thing was, "I'm no saint, you know that, but some of the things that I have done are just...unforgivable." She took a deep breath in, and before she continued, she looked at me, and she made me promise that I wouldn't tell anyone about anything I heard that very night. At that point I knew that it was something very serious, and even if she were planning to destroy the world, then I would keep my mouth shut, and I'd stand by her side. I would die at her command. 

"My parents that were killed, they weren't my real parents." This came as a surprise, her father looked so much like her, and to know that it was a mere coincidence boggled my mind. "They adopted me when I was seven, they didn't even know..." She looked away from the moon, and I shuffled onto the air mattress with her, and I held her hand. I always believed that actions were louder than words. She took another deep breath, there were bags under her eyes, and she was slightly under a layer of sweat, even though it was snowing. "I killed my real parents. They were horrible, awful people, they'd strap us to a chair for days and torture us, I had to endure that for seven years of my life. No one even knew that I existed, I didn't even go to school." She was shaking with nervousness. Once my mind actually saw that she killed her parents, and said "Us," for some reason, I responded by giving her hand a loving squeeze, urging for her to continue. To be honest, I was quite shocked. How could someone as sweet as her kill another human being?

"A-And before you report me to the police, please just listen to me. When they let us out... out of the chairs, I eavesdropped in their room, and they said that they would kill my little brother to teach me a l-lesson." (If you don't have a little brother than you do now). "So, when they were sleeping, I went to the bathroom and I snuck some prescription Bi-Polar medicine my mother wasn't taking, I ground it up, and I put it into a bag to use in the morning. Just to be safe, I made my brother sleep with me in my room that night, and I hid a knife under my pillow." I knew where this story was going, and I had no I idea how a seven-year-old could have such sophisticated murder plans, but I let her continue. "They made us cook breakfast, so when they weren't looking I slipped the medicine into their morning wine, they always drank a lot." She ended her sad story with, 

"One year later, my little brother got hit by a bus, and I wasn't able to save him."


	14. Chapter Fourteen: S.O.D- State of Despair

After he wrote that chapter in, he closed the book, and he decided that you killing your parents in self-defense was all that book ever needed to know about that memory. Damian promised that he would tell no one, and in a way, he utterly twisted that promise, and he planned on burning that book when he was done with it. So that he could restore that promise. But the desire to tell someone was building up on him, like the stresses he used to feel as a Robin or the weights he had to carry as he climbed mountains, for the League of Assassins. And he understood that (Y/N) must've felt that way too, the guilt piling up on her back, and she told no soul for six years.

Damian also felt so blessed, so grateful that she decided to tell him, of all people. She also knew that it was a very great risk telling the most recent crime fighter, Robin, that she committed a serious act long ago. An act of sin. But, somehow the risk wasn't calculated correctly, because Damian didn't turn her into the police, and she was still a free girl. And after that moment in time, things didn't go back to normal, not at all. The two spent the night up on the arch, their beings illuminated by the lights so beautifully strung up around the arches, their voices quiet and unsure, and their words full of confession that they wouldn't even tell a priest. The things that were spoken out of their mouths could never be taken back, and quite frankly, they didn't want to take those things back. He remembered the moment with clarity. 

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They were not confessions of love, they were confessions of murder. Anything but love, really. 

The girl went on to express her guilt about the crime she committed long ago, by the form of crystal tears glowing in the moonlight and shaky voices that were ready to shatter, at any moment. Damian knew that she was going through something rough, he went through the same thing when he first moved to America. He was hated by his family, they symbolically quarantined him like he held a disease that had no cure. But then again, their situations were different. 

When he learned that killing innocent people, or any person for that matter, was wrong, he was forgiven, and his disease suddenly cured. For her, she had to put on a smiling face every day, knowing that if she told anyone else she would pay dearly. It was like a bomb about to explode or a stick about to snap, the tension was too much, it was too painful. But like how he was cured of his disease, the tension finally made the bomb explode and the twig snap, they were both broken versions of their former selfs, but the pain was gone. Yes, his best friend was broken, but he will always be willing to fix her. After the confessions of sin, the girl got off of the air mattress and laid on the ground. "Why are you laying on the ground?" Damian asked, in a sort of motherly way. 

She were rambling, but Damian's ears caught on to the two words "Too hot," and then he knew that they girl was having a fever due to the fresh injuries that she was suffering from. Damian cursed himself for ever bringing her in this state, he blamed himself as he picked the frail girl up and took her to his house. He called her mother to tell her that (Y/N) was staying at his house, and she sternly complied after some persuasion. 

Damian quietly took her to his room, and he tucked her in. "Damian," She called, as he was getting ready for his bed on the floor, he looked up, and she was looking right at him. Her eyes were full of fear and innocence, and he knew immediately that she wanted him to sleep with her, in the bed. He sighed, they were already shameless, so why not? He crawled up, and she shared the blanket with him, they fell asleep almost instantly. Their subconscious bodies pulled their arms and legs and beings together so that they were in a loving embrace. Her face was hidden in the boy's chest, as his arms were wrapped around the small of her back, his chin on the top on her head, and their legs intertwined like a spider's web.

When he woke up and found out that he was actually in that embrace, he was so glad that he woke before anyone ever would. 1:30 every morning, a habit drilled into him by the Leauge of Assasins and their damned time difference. He found you in his warm embrace, and he quietly sighed. He was in a state of despair, but for once in his life, he didn't listen to those saddened cries in his head. For once, he just basked in your warmth, and when it was the time that you got up he was already gone. 

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Damian had voices in his head. Ever since he was very young, ever since he remembered, they would either scream him awake or sing him to sleep. He named them, every one of them had a different personality. Gunner, a big man who had a deep, Earthly voice, and in his mind's eye he saw him with bulging muscles, brown hair and growing stubble. He was mostly the anger in his head, the grief or disgust. And when he got home from his manly job he beat whatever he could. The weasely brother he lived with, Craven, the voice in his head that sounded wormy and sly, he looked more like a stick that had pale skin and green eyes like his older brother. He was also the greed and jealousy, a leech that his brother beat every day. The main reason why Craven was such a bad person was mainly the offspring of his brother's beatings. 

Then came Angel, the girl who was tied up in a blue dress with a black floral pattern, the ones that looked like they were from the early 19th century, the piece of cloth symbolizing her own troubles. Her smile would brighten his head when Miss Classy wasn't there, and she was the main contributor to Damian's daydreams about (Y/N). Angel looked like (Y/N), and was very young compared to the other voices in his head, she was only born when he met Miss Classy. Although she looked like (Y/N), she had a voice like Snow White, it sounded fake and happy, like a kind of subdued dream or illusion that quite frankly, no one would ever want to escape. 

Angel had a mother, Miss Darcy, she was the sane, the calm in the eye of the storm. She, unlike her gleaming daughter, had somewhat of a cold and shrill voice, but she was beautiful nonetheless, with the palest skin and done-up auburn hair. Since Angel couldn't kill anyone, Miss Darcy would, if Damian wanted control over a certain situation. Say, if Gunner was out of control, and was an actual threat to anyone else except Craven, she would just take the gun hidden in her breasts and shoot Gunner square in the eyes. 

Whenever a voice was killed, Damian just needed to feel the certain emotion they held to revive them again. Miss Darcy was a widowed woman, she lost her husband when her child was born into Damian's mind, the man being too scared to help raise it, so he killed himself. Of course, his ghost still lingers and haunts Miss Darcy, and he is only known as Sir Darcy the Third, carrying a bloodline name of royalty, but with royalty in his blood, he also carried other things, like sweet melancholy, pure sadness, insanity or anxiety. Sir Darcy the Third was a cruel man, crueler than Gunner or Craven or Miss Darcy, because he attacked Damian, in a physical state. Even though Angel could give him a slow, misty summer dream, Sir Darcy would always be stronger. But when (Y/N) was around, all the voices would quiet down, shush each other sometimes, and Damian could hear the faint crunch of popcorn as if they were watching a movie inside of Damian's own head. 

Damian was absent-mindedly putting on his Robin suit for his next patrol, shaking the images of your sleeping frame out of his head, and he went to his extremist office job.


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Somewhere in the Clouds

Damian finished his patrol shift, he took note of what was happening in his shifts, a pastime he liked to think about when his heart was too pained to think about (Y/N). A woman was about to be raped by another woman, surprisingly, and he took the lady down. An old woman got her purse stolen from a kid, before he felt bad and gave the purse back to her. Other than that, it was a very silent night. Damian slid the Robin uniform off and quickly changed into normal clothes, and he embarked his journey to home. The air was cold and dry, something leaked out of Damian's nose, and when he looked down, he saw that it was blood. Instead of panicking, he just went into an alleyway and he let his nose bleed. He had better things to worry about. 

Miss Darcy was yelling in his head, "What are you doing, lad? Don't just sit there, clean that nose!" She was about to go on before Sir Darcy spoke in his head, and in a gurgle, evil voice he said "(Y/N) would want you to clean that nose. I bet she would disapprove of your bad manners greatly. Right now, I bet she hates you, I wouldn't be surprised if that goddamned whore hated you the whole time she knew you! I bet- No, I know that she was just after your money, your fame, your heart and soul, and after you've given everything, what has she given back?!" When Sir Darcy was saying this, well, more like screaming this, Damian felt that snake tighten around his chest, his nosebleed become even more powerful than before due to his fast heartbeat, and he had to lean on the alleyway walls for support, his free hand gripping his heart like it was they very last thing that kept his sanity in check. 

He didn't notice that it was raining until he was shivering and wet. He didn't notice he was crying until his eyes started to burn. He didn't notice that he blacked out until he woke up in a stranger's apartment. It wasn't a dingy apartment, but it was all frilly and pink, there were even neon lights in the windows, spelling out a backward's "SEXY WOMAN IN HERE!" It's pink neon radiance that it gave off gave two things to Damian: A strange feeling of disgust, and a headache. He heard footsteps, the clack of high heels, on a magenta-stained wooden floor, and when she came into sight, Damian's headache got even worse. The woman, no doubt in his mind when he first laid eyes in the room he was resting in, was a prostitute, or looked like one. 

She was wearing tight black clothing, mainly consisting of fish net leggings, a very short skirt and a crop top that could actually be a bra. Her stomach and waist were unbearably tiny, he knew that she had ribs removed. "Hey, Damian," She said, in a kind of voice where it wasn't bitchy, stuck-up or sexy. It was somewhere in between that spectrum. 

Things went from bad to worse when she started to attack Damian in a... sexual manner. He wouldn't stand for this. He couldn't. Miss Darcy was shaming the girl, Craven was laughing, Gunner was screaming at him to beat her into a pulp and leave her to die, Sir Darcy made his breath shallow. Angel's body was slowly decaying in the background, she died of neglect and starvation, she didn't seem to even exist after (Y/N) died. She was only revived when he thought of (Y/N), and she died over and over again. When she was speaking, even her voice was sad, and it was hoarse and it was barely there. Angel was at her weakest, and the others at their strongest. At their loudest. 

He pushed the girl off of him, so she landed on the other side of the couch, and he stood up. He walked out of the apartment without another word, and he left the girl speechless and confused. He was thankful that she save him from freezing to death, but from the moment he recognized her, he knew that he needed to get out. She was Mackenzie Wiles, a prostitute, a hacker, a stalker, but to sum it up, she was a crazy bitch. Mackenzie was a girl that grew up in Gotham, and ever since she laid eyes on Damian, he sanity switch in her brain turned off. She was obsessed. Damian didn't see it, but in her room, Mackenzie had paper cutouts of his face plastered all over her walls, she even got a tattoo of him. 

Mackenzie also knew about (Y/N), she thought that (Y/N) stole Damian's heart, and she wasn't the rightful owner. And in a way, (Y/N) did have Damian's heart, but she wouldn't go as far as to steal it. Damian gave it to her. And that, was very rare. Anyone he gave his heart to either stabbed him in the back or neglected it, because they left. Grayson left. Talia stabbed it. Tim almost sent him another way, away from you. But that time, when Tim tried to rebuild the Teen Titans and move him to Jump city, Damian refused. Tim was smart enough to understand. Jason was never there, Bruce was too busy with his own problems to find time to nurture Damian's heart, but (Y/N) took great care of it. 

That's why Damian loved (Y/N) more than anyone else in this whole world, why he still had a devotion to her, even though she was six feet under ground. Because no one else took care of him, he was like an abused dog being pet for the very first time. It takes so long to not feel fear when someone touches you, but eventually, that fear will go away, and you lean into that hand. Her giggles, her smile, the way she talked and so gracefully moved, it was what Damian needed in his life, her eyes could pierce his soul. No one loved Damian like she did, not Bruce, Grayson, Talia, Barbara, Alice, Stephanie, Tim, Jason, or even Titus. 

(Y/N) loved him like no other person would, and to him that was the greatest gift in life, so he made sure to treat that gift with respect. He held doors open for her, he insisted to pay whenever a cost arises, he was a gentlemen with his heart now rotting in a coffin, just like before he met (Y/N). And that love was something that Mackenzie could never achieve with him. 

Damian walked home, he figured by the dying light of day that he was only out for a couple of hours. He also knew that it was going to rain again, every inch of land touched by the rain that was only beginning to dry off would get wet again. He hurried into his apartment, dropped the keys on the counter and went into his bathroom. He had a bad habit of just going into his bathroom and staring into himself for minutes, maybe even hours, Sir Darcy attacking his mind when it was at it's most vulnerable. 

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"(Y/N), can I tell you a secret?" Damian asked, his eyes were nervous, and he was fidgeting with the edges of his sleeves. He never does this. The young girl nodded, instantly taking one of Damian's hands and leading him to his room. There, she opened the balcony door, it was raining. He never knew why she like to go on his balcony when it was raining, but somehow, he found it calming too. The air was at an unforgivably cold temperature, but the warmth of the girls hand clutching his was all he needed. 

She let go of his hand, leaving it cold and alone, while she sad cross-legged on the ground. She was right on the edge of where the roof ended and the rain began. He sat with her in the same fashion, and she was silent. He knew that it was his time to speak, but he couldn't form the words. He held his head in his hands in the most despairing way, his eyes were already on the verge of leaking, an alien action to him. "I have..." Damian couldn't finish the sentence. He though that it was a normal thing in the League of Assassins, but when he told his father, Bruce just stared at him plainly for awhile, before locking his gaze back on the computer and telling him that he was going to see a therapist. 

Damian lied to the therapist when he saw the man, he said he was all better in a matter of months. 

"Voices." Damian finished, he couldn't even say any more words to explain his troubled mind. You crawled right in front of him, you saw that Damian was crying, tears slipping through the cracks of his hands. But she understood perfectly, because the little girl had voices in her head too. She hugged him on the ground, and he hugged back afterwards. 

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He absently picked up a knife, he had many, being the son of Talia Al'Ghul, and he twirled it around in his hands. When his mind actually registered the cold blade of metal against his knuckled, he looked down at the knife. Cutting himself was unnecessary, he knew that it was wrong, and so, so cliched, but Sir Darcy kept on persisting that he did it. And, Damian did as his voice commanded. He poked the finger on his skin, and he saw the blood leak out of it. 

He kept on cutting himself until his arm spelt the word: "(Y/N) (L/N) is my love."


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Absence of Mind, Heart and Soul

Damian was going on the slow descent to madness, a plummet into darkness, something that he could not control. One sign is that he was talking to the Joker more than he was his therapist, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. At least the Joker didn't drug him up so he just got his paycheck for the month, and at least the Joker understood him. Bruce constantly questioned himself why Joker wasn't committing much crime as of late, and Damian always remained silent. The Joker was going easy on them, with the little respect he had for the two.

But this was not one of those times. Damian had a day off from work, and he wasn't on patrol that night. No one was noticing his cuts, and he wasn't a attention seeking whore, so he felt relieved. In his world of darkness, he was in a good place right now, darkness-wise. He must have been insane thinking that cutting yourself, no one noticing, and still devoting your life to your dead crush was being in a good place, but if you get used to something, it doesn't seem so bad. The thing he got used to was torture.

His mother was the worst. If he complained about killing, she would collect the blood of his enemies and she would make him bathe in it. If he spoke out of line, she would sew his mouth shut, not opening it for months. If he didn't want to pick up a sword, his main killing machine back then, she would break his tiny little fingers and would make him pick up the sword anyways, she was very close to stabbing his eyes out when he didn't remain in a state of full eye contact with her. Oh, and that was only the start. He still had scars on his back from refusing to read a book, those certain scars wording out sloppily written sentences in Latin.

The first one who showed him affection in any way, was his brother Grayson, sadly. He wished that it was (Y/N), but back to the point. Grayson's love was brotherly love, and even though he had his fights with everyone else, they accepted him. And Miss Classy's love, it was the most special love to him. It was a interlocking friendship that was too big to fall, to successful to fail, too strong to crumble. And even if Damian fucked up by kissing her, making things awkward for a couple of weeks, they'd eventually talk it out.

He knew what her lips felt like, they were velvety and soft, Damian was persuaded that (Y/N) was God's most perfect creation. Not anyone else but her, and for once in his life, he was thankful to God for giving him not a girl, but a blessing. A miracle. A light to his darkness, a water to his fire, a wind to his Earth. Although, he never got to feel how those lips moved against his. He only kissed her in her sleep, the prince that kissed sleeping beauty, but the true love was not in his soul. Although, it clearly was there. He just simply was not the one to wake her from her hundred year slumber.

Damian walked to his window, looking at his rose that was starting to wilt. He watered it like he always has, and it had no problem with living without the sun. If it lived in Gotham, it could live in a cave and it would be no different. He wondered why it was dying, he had that rose for years now, and if it died, he think the rest of him would die too. That rose was his lifeline, the thing that he clung to for support, the thing that reminded him of (Y/N), the girl that didn't smell like roses.

Suddenly, there was a big 'Whack!' on his window, the fallen object sliding slowly down, almost like a cartoon. At first, Damian was scared shitless, he didn't have the heart to hold any type of courage anymore, but that fear turned into care for the thing that hit his window. He opened the window a tiny bit, and took the feathery thing into his hands, running to his kitchen to see if it was dead. In a miraculous state, it wasn't but it was terribly injured. This was the first time Damian willingly talked to another soul, even if it couldn't talk back, it seemed to understand greatly.

The poor thing, he thought, he had to crack its wings, feet and back in place again, the little bird in so much pain. But, instead of pecking at him or trying to fly away, the bird knew that Damian was helping him. He later identified it as a crow, a baby girl crow that would possibly never fly for the rest of her life, starting it as a cripple. Alfred the cat died, so did Titus and the family had the Bat Cow for breakfast when it was nearing the end of it's life, and every other pet he tried to own they sold. So, this could be the first pet he owned in a very long time.

The crow was mature and motherly, even for it's very young age, and he spoke to the mystical crow once more. "You know, you're an omen of death. I wonder why, you don't seem so bad." Damian said this, and somehow, when he was speaking to the omen of death itself, he realized that he had a morbid but beautiful connection to death, he died once, most of his family members died, and once death finally bestowed it's sweet gift unto him, he would take it as if he were greeting an old friend instead of a complete stranger.

"I don't like common names, do you?" He asked the little crow, it's feathers still soft and grey from the time of it's birth, and she gave him a disapproving look as if she were saying no. She didn't shake her head like some cartoon animal, but she was smart enough to have a half silent conversation with one of her greatest predators, the human being. Damian gently washed her with no soap and very warm water, some blood tumbling down with the water and twirling down the drain, although they were only cuts, and they would heal after a couple of days. She likes the warm feeling of a bath, it was foreign, but nice on her skin and feathers. After that, he slowly turned the handle back so it wouldn't startle the small creature. He dried it off with a towel, and he let it lay there in the warmth of the cloth for a little while. Damian pet her head before he told her that he was leaving to get his first aid kit to bandage her up, but when he did she squeaked with desperation, her voice still not fully grown into a shrill caw.

He chuckled, a noise so alien to him that he surprised himself. After he got over the initial shock of his own laughter, he picked the tiny crow up, making sure that it was comfortable in his leathery right hand. He got the first aid kit out of his cabinet, and he sat on his couch, gently spreading the wings of the tiny animal so he could wrap the bandages around it wings, it's back and it's legs. Damian put the bandages back to the crow's surprise, and Damian cooed to the crow, "There, see? It's all done, now we just have to go through the aching of joints for a couple months, before your bones heal. Can you do that for me?" Damian asked, and the crow cooed back and gave him a trusting and brave look to him.

As he put the first aid kit back, he went on, "See? That's my brave little crow. I wonder what I should name you," He gently sat back down on his couch, he wasn't afraid of getting diseases, he washed the creature, and it was only born a few months ago. His eyes went clouded with concentration, as he came up with a name that hasn't been used since the 1880's. "I think I will name you Mercy. It fits you very well. My opinion used to be that your name was the description of your soul, I was fierce and angry back then, so I fit my name's description quite well, but now, I'm not so sure. And I don't even know if this change is for the better or the worse."

The crow, now named Mercy, looked at Damian with curious eyes, in a sort of motherly, concerned way. A change in his heart, his mind, his soul wasn't some conscious effort, Mercy figured. It's because something happened to him, and she was dying to know.

"My name is Damian. Damian Wayne, and I guess you'll be Mercy Wayne, be we just call ourselves by our first names around here, Mercy." Even though the little bird understood, she thought that humans were very peculiar creatures, each one of them completely unique. Damian, what a nice name, Mercy thought, she envied his black hair and loved his green eyes, and she knew that this human wasn't like any other human. This one was different, this Damian was loving and kind and gentle.

This Damian was full of melancholy.


	17. Chapter Seventeen:Messages of Better Times

Mercy was taught by her mother to never trust humans, and she followed that advice with caution until she got herself injured. The human she met, her human, took care of her, she stayed with him, and therefore she broke her promise made to herself to follow her mother's advice. But this human was something that lots of people weren't. He was heartbroken, and he was insane, and somehow, for Mercy, this was her advantage. If she could speak, she would ask him what made him go in such a state. She felt guilty, her Damian fixed her broken body, and she wanted so badly to help fix his broken mind.

Her feathers were still gray and her bones were still broken, it has been seven days since Damian first took her in. Mercy also grew a disorder of separation anxiety, so Damian took her to his work, and would hide her in his belt when he was on patrol. Everyone noticed that he was more graceful, careful in his movements, something he hasn't been in a long time. One time Barbara asked him, and he said it was none of her concern. Tim interrogated him, and he got the same results, just with more ferocity in his voice. 

Mercy appreciated what he was doing for her, she felt humbled, that someone so broken would break himself even more for her well being. It was another one of those nights, and Mercy was set down on the window sill near the rose. She climbed up to the rose, and nuzzled it with all of her might. At first, Damian just looked at her sideways, but then he got it. Mercy was trying to make his rose alive again. He smiled sadly at her, and he said "Sorry Mercy, hugging something won't make it alive again," Mercy looked at him, sadness and hopelessness filled her eyes. 

And as if a miracle blessed her, Damian got that she was curious about his sad state. He asked her if she wanted to know the meaning behind that rose, and she nuzzled his finger with all of her might. Damian let out a hum that rumbled inside of his chest, he didn't want to do this, but then again, Mercy could give no response. She could never tell him that she disapproved of anything. "That rose reminds me of a girl, she was my best friend. Long story short, she died a couple of years ago, and ever since then I have never been the same. Since almost the time I met her, I loved her with all of my heart, even though we never..." Damian had difficulty in his speaking, and Mercy nuzzled him again, silently urging him to go on. 

"I loved her so much. We never got to kiss, we always remained friends instead of lovers, I should have kissed her while I had my time. " Now, Mercy wasn't curious. She didn't want to know. She just curled herself into a little ball and she wanted to die for being so nosy. 

And Damian slept like that, on the couch with little Mercy in his hands. 

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The Joker was worried about the kid. Damian. And before people start complaining, yes, the Joker knew who every person in the Bat Family was, and with the respect he held for those people, he kept it a tightly held secret. Since he was Gotham's number one criminal, and the GCPD gave anyone, young or old to shoot on sight, he had to sneak into Damian's house. When he did, he saw that his rose was dying, and he was cupping something furry in his hands. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it was a baby bird. 

Joker sat on his couch, waiting for Damian to wake up. Their meetings were mostly like this, Joker sneaking into his house and waiting for the light sleeper Damian to wake up. He mumbled something incoherent, before he sat up and rubbed his eyes with one hand. He knew the Joker was in his house, sitting next to him. "Hey," Damian greeted hoarsely, the resting crow still in his hand. He set her down on a pillow, she stirred ever so slightly. Joker hummed back, obviously curious about the bird. 

"Her name is Mercy. She smacked herself on my window and I intend on keeping her." Damian stated, and Joker hummed again. 

"Looks like somethin' to eat." The Joker jested, but Damian looked at him with shock, as if he were insane. Well, he was insane, what would the kid expect? After Joker got over his maniacal laughing fits, he apologized and they sat down on the couch. 

"How did she die?" Joker asked, out of the blue. Most of his actions were spontaneous and had no meaning, but Damian could tell that Joker put some thought into it. He huffed a sigh, he already confessed things to his bird, but this was going too far. Too deep into the jagged mind of Damian Wayne, his broken voices and memories, shriveled emotions and shards of his mind becoming too strong for him. Damian didn't want to tell him, he couldn't. It was degrading, if he told Joker he was certain that he'd break down and sob. That he'd eradicate his house, everything would be messy and out of place like his broken mind. 

After Damian stayed silent and indicated that he didn't want to tell, Joker said "You don't have to tell me now. But sometime, either if it's your therapist, your dad or brothers, even me, you are going to have to spill." Damian didn't respond, he just hunched over, head in his hands, wanting to cry, but no more tears were left. He felt empty, like his emotions were ravaged from him for one final time before they died off, into an endless abyss where they could never be recovered. Like he was a fire already dead in it's ashes, there were no more embers to save it from it's inevitable death. 

The Joker left silently, for Damian to be alone, and when the Joker did, Miss Darcy spoke in his mind. "Don't worry, child. I'm sure that Angel will be with you." Damian chuckled, were the own voices in his head that blind? He didn't want Angel back, he wanted (Y/N) back, because (Y/N) was his Angel. But somehow, now, it was one or the other, and the choices were limited. 

Damian didn't sleep for a week after that, punishing himself by the cuts he infused into his own skin.


	18. Chapter Eighteen: Hate is Love Through Blind Eyes

"Joker, you can come out now," Bruce said, seemingly having eyes in the back of his head. The Joker did as he was told, and he stepped out of the Bat cave's jagged shadows. He chuckled to himself, this was going to be a train wreck of sad emotions: He could just tell. The Joker had a sharp sense for these things. 

"I didn't ask you to be his spy." Bruce scolded, while taking his cowl off and rubbing his eyes. He was tired, he hadn't had any sleep in a week either worrying for his youngest son or fending him off from his other nosy family members, namely Barbara. When Bruce said this, the Joker's smile faded. 

"So you don't need me to be a spy, just so you could spike his damn house? He trusts me more than he trusts any of you, and I want to see how he's doing." Some anger laced his voice, but it was mostly just the defensiveness in Joker's personality kicking up. Bruce grumbled, he had a point. Even if he countered that it was his son, Joker could talk back and say that in his family he thought that blood didn't matter; Only bond. 

Bruce turned around, leaned on his computer, and the Joker walked up to him. The green haired man crossed his arms, and the black haired man rubbed his eyes once more. "This can't work, the thing between us," Bruce said in vain, referring the relationship that the Joker and Batman held together. "It's going to be impossible, you have Harley, and I have my family. But I do appreciate you trying to help one of them, Joker." Then, Bruce turned back around like the conversation never took place. 

"Oh, how selfish of you Batsy. You thought this was about us? No! I want to help Damian, and if I am doing that on my own accord," The Joker paused in his sentence, knowing that Bruce could finish the sentence for him. "Then, we'll have to do this our own separate way." And that was it, Bruce finished the sentence for him, and he turned back around, his back hunched so he could meet the short height of the green haired man. 

Joker responded with a 'Right' before they leaned together, their last kiss the most bittersweet. It wasn't just tongue and teeth, but it wasn't full of passion, either. It was full of something sad, it was full of love, an emotion so very alien to both of them, that they could only face it together. It wasn't some sloppy kiss, it was silent, and when they broke apart they were both in a worse state than before, they were full of love. Batman cupped Joker's cheek, and the Joker put his hand over his, their eyes both filled with sadness. This was the first time in months that they had their time together, and the relationship's enthusiasm was wearing thin, if it had any at all, to begin with. They knew that they would have to part someday, and they knew this fact for years. 

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Joker said, clenching his eyes shut, the sting of tears too much for him, they still flowed from his eyes with ease. He felt the hot tears run down his face and drop down his chin, onto the floor. His white, cold hand that was on top of Bruce's gloved one was clenching it for dear life, and even though he couldn't see it, he felt the lips of his lover gently plant themselves on top of his forehead, before his arms wrapped around the small, skinny purple suited torso. Joker was in a warm embrace, but people say even if the sun shines it doesn't make you feel warm, and in this case, the hug wasn't so comforting. 

"We will find a way, I promise you. Someday, I promise." Bruce promised in Joker's ear, and it was a promise he intended to keep. They sat there for a few minutes, in that embrace before the Joker decided to leave and Batman decided to get back to work. 

It was a promise he intended to keep.

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Mercy's feathers are taking shape, it has been two weeks since the first incident. I don't know why I still write in this book, it has so many secrets that I need to burn any trace of. I need to cover them up, and if I don't live to do so, I am going to betray the trust of my best friend, the perfect friendship we built from bricks of arguments, stubborn weeks of not talking to each other, memories and wonderful nights to remember. And as I chuckle to myself, I've noticed that I only tell the good stories in our friendship, not the bad. So why don't we start?

We were fighting over our futures, something so important to us. I wanted to stay, she wanted to leave. I wanted her to stay with me, and she wanted to take me with her. As kids, we promised to each other that when the time came, we would never be separated for the rest of our lives, no matter what. We screamed at each other, I threw things that shattered against the wall, and she was crying tears of utter rage, her body language completely dangerous. My words were hateful, hers were hurtful, we were fighting like a married couple on the verge of a divorce. Even though I had thick walls in my old house, and every family member was gone for the day, I am almost certain the neighbors heard us. Gunner was screaming, and take note that this is before I told her that I had voices in my head, voices that dictate my every move, even to this day. 

"Why do you want to stay anyways, Damian?" She asked, after the heat of the argument, in a defeated, weary voice. I grumbled to myself, this question was too hard to answer, even if I were the smartest person in the world. This question didn't take wits, it took heart, a department I lacked in greatly. 

"Why do you want to leave?" I asked back, deciding not to answer her question until I got my answer. She shook her head, and slid her knees to her chest, only the upper portion of her face showing itself. She hugged her legs tightly, her fingers tapped themselves on her torso in a very nervous way. 

"Because," After she started, she couldn't seem to finish for a little while, but I let her have her time. I waited for an answer. "Because... There are too many... I just... Too many memories here," After she finished, I understood her. She had a great point, and now, it was my turn to be quiet, and to find the right words, and to be ashamed of the answer I chose. I wished to say so many things that day, like 'I want to have fucking babies with you,' or 'I want you to be my Queen of Gotham City,' or just simply, 'I love you,' would have done the trick. 

But none of those answers would have satisfied her curiosity, so, like her, I decided, to be honest. "You are my only friend, Miss Classy. If I left, my father, and everyone else in my twisted, little family, would be disappointed in me, I was raised to be the perfect soldier, a killing prince in my Mother's eyes. But that's not the real point." I slid an arm around her, and she absentmindedly rested her head on my shoulder. "I'm afraid that you would leave me, MC. When we were fighting, back there," I tightened my grip on her shoulder, and I looked down. I didn't cry, but an emotion I was taught to kill came bubbling up inside my chest: Fear. 

"I could just imagine that we would be traveling around the world, and when I woke up in some hotel room, you would be gone without a trace of any remorse, without a goodbye." She looked up at me with shock in her eyes, and then, that shock was quickly replaced by sadness, and she put her head own again and snuggled closer to me. I guess she was sad that I would doubt her so much, and quite frankly, I wouldn't blame her. 

I can't really blame her for anything.


	19. Chapter Nineteen: Nothing Shouts Life like Skulls and Daisies

Talia hated Bruce. She knew about the Joker and him, she knew that they had a strange attraction to each other, even when they weren't together. A Moriarty to his Holmes, the Bonnie to his Clyde. And Talia grew angrier and grew to the point where she couldn't take it anymore, and she drugged Bruce so she could conceive his child, Damian. 

And now, Talia was angry at Damian. 

He was supposed to be strong, fierce, he was supposed to have a rageful fire in his soul, he was supposed to kill people with no mercy, he was supposed to be a war machine. But now, he is more like Van Gogh, he put his heart and soul into a girl that died, and he lost his mind in the process. Love-stricken, heartbroken, cupid's arrow left forgotten, and uncollected in his aching heart. The roses that he left at her grave wilted, but they were still there. 

Talia was very angry. So, she decided to visit him one night. 

The shadows did not follow her, like her father made them. She was never the assassin that he could be, and that's why Ra's urged her to have a son. Because she was not good enough, Talia had too much of an ego for her curvy body, for her looks, while in reality no one really cared. Selina had curves and a face, Harley has curves and a face, and so did Ivy. Talia tried at everything, to be a fighter, to be a lover, and when she put it in retrospect, the reason why she pushed her son, the reason why she tortured him so badly as a child, is because she didn't want him to turn out like herself. A not good enough fighter, a not good enough lover, a not good enough philosopher.

She slipped through his apartment window, and he found him laying in bed, his schedule showed that it was the weekend from work, and his family didn't need his presence at the time. He was a light sleeper, but her footsteps seemed to be lighter, so that gave Talia time to examine Damian. He wasn't eating; She could tell by how painfully narrow his face was, and the next result of the examination surprised her. Damian was cutting himself, writing words on himself in the name of blood. Next, Talia's anger diminished. Her hands started to shake, her eyes started to water, she hated herself for being his mother. Her son was more like her than anyone else, head over heels in love with somebody that doesn't have the capacity to love back; In her case, Batman and The Joker, in his case, the girl that didn't smell like roses, the girl that died. 

Damian stirred, then he opened his eyes to feel his mother's hand grazing his cheek in a loving, maternal way. To see his mother, crying silently, standing above him with a darkened face, it was surprising, to say the least. His reflexes kicked in, and he jumped to the other side of the room, his crow tightly clutched to his chest, now fully awake like her owner. "What do you want?" Damian nearly shouted, his crow now feeling his distress, and his throat was sore. He hasn't shouted at someone in a very long time. Talia was surprised, but saddened nonetheless. If she raised him right then he would have loved her. 

"I want nothing of you Damian, I just want answers," Talia spoke truthfully. She traveled over to his home in an unfathomable anger, but there was one thing that she wasn't good at, that added to the long list: Holding a grudge against her son. Damian growled, not fully trusting her, but that growl died out, and he composed himself. 

"Answers for what? I thought you didn't care about me, mother." Damian spat, as he went into his closet to change his set of clothes. He chose a t-shirt and sweatpants, the comfortability of the cloth he did not care about, it was just easy to put on. After that, he opened the door and placed Mercy on his kitchen counter, as it was the middle of the night, but he wanted food. His mother followed him, and she gazed at the crow. It looked slightly broken, slightly suspicious, but when Talia went to pet her, Mercy nuzzled her finger. 

"What did you want to ask me?" Damian asked, and Talia took a deep breath. Ever since she left Damian with Bruce, she isolated herself from anything going on in the Americas, and she sulked with her broken heart, killing anyone who had a contract with money on their lives. The best part of her life was over, she came to the peak of her adventure, and now it was her time to fade away, to get old and to die. She didn't want to be like her father, afraid of death, not ever wanting to taste the sweet nectar of eternal rest. She wanted to get old one day, she wanted to feel the pains of aching joints, cold fingers, and she wanted to feel the agony of getting so sick that she would have to stay in the bed at the end of it, and at the climax of her pain, her heart would stop forever, and she wanted to be buried in a grave that boldly stated her name and the date of her birth, and her death. She wanted to be forgotten over the generations.

"Who was that girl? The girl that you loved? What was her name? What was she like?" Damian tensed up at the question. His body seemed to freeze, leaving the omelet he was preparing to slightly burn for a few seconds before resuming again. He wished so badly that she came to ask something else, first his family in Gotham spiked his house for answers, but to no avail. Joker tried to coax it out of him, but to still no avail, and he was planning to have the same outcome with his mother; to no avail. They were asking all of the same questions, they got all the same answers, and Damian was getting tired of all the sudden fuss about both his mental and physical state. 

"Her name was (Y/N), and I didn't love her. I..." He sighed again. His mother could tell that he was lying, even when he had his back turned. And instead of giving her time to demand the truth, he gave it to her, very shortly. Very curtly. "Nevermind that, I did love her. I loved her very much, but now she's gone, and there is nothing that we can do about it. She was kind, sweet, and she was absolutely gorgeous, but now she's gone, mother. And that's that. I don't even know why anyone of you, Bruce, Dick, Tim, even Jason are fussing over me this much. I just want to be left alone." After that, Damian served Talia some food, and gave Mercy a snack. 

Talia responded with a small, silent "I get what you mean, son," Before she prepared herself for the next question she was going to ask, and before, she promised her son that she would tell no one, not a soul. 

"How did this (Y/N) die?"


	20. Chapter Twenty: Red tears and Clear Blood

If the last question hadn't taken Damian by surprise, this one certainly did. And he didn't know if he should be surprised or not, other people were dying to know before her. And like sandpaper on a piece of sturdy wood, Damian was worn down, the last stubbornness in his personality fighting with his defeated soul. Gunner was urging to fight, Craven was trying to persuade to steal, Sir Darcy was just his normal evil, and Miss Darcy was yelling at them all to shut up. Angel was on the brink of death again, she was laying on the floor, and her chest was heaving up and down. She would die in a couple of minutes, anyways. She was like a fish out of water, slowly suffocating until it's dead body baked in the sun. 

Damian sighed, his stomach rumbled but he did not eat. He felt urges to kill, but no one's blood was spilt. He wanted to love again, but that wasn't a choice for him. His love was taken away from him whether he liked it or not. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, trying to find proper words to appease his mother. Mercy felt his unease, and she crawled away from Talia's hand and nuzzled his instead. He mumbled to himself, not intending for his his mother to hear it, but then again, he stopped caring about anything a long time ago. "Such a sweet bird,"

And somehow, his defeated soul won, and he explained everything. When he was done, his mother wore a pale face.

"She and I... We were kidnapped by Professor Pyg, you know him, right mother?" His mother nodded before he continued. "The Professor had something special planned for us, he saw us more than imperfect, he saw us as pieces of slime that crawled on this Earth, he didn't even see us as abominations. He saw us as toys to play around with, animals to eat." Damian felt horrible, he closed his eyes tightly, and put his head in his hands for a couple of seconds before he composed himself again, posture as straight as an arrow.

"He told his perfections to beat her, take away any dignity we both had left, and throw it out the window, and Pyg made me watch while his horrible opera was playing in the background. When I tried to turn my head away, forceful hands would turn it back, and when I tried to close my eyes, they clamped them open. Father came just in time to save me from the same fate, but not her. When Pyg was done with her, he slit her throat like he never knew how much she meant to me, those three seconds of her death meaning nothing to the universe, and time moved on after that, like nothing ever fucking happened. That's why I intend to kill him when I'm older, when Bruce is dead and everyone has gone their separate ways for the final time, and when he thinks that he is safe, and he can live his life as a free man, he will be horribly wrong, and I will spend the rest of my days, just torturing him, drinking his blood while I make him eat his own shit!" Damian's words were full of vengeance and anger, but his mother understood.

Because for Damian Wayne and Talia Al Ghul, vengeance, grief and anger were a common ground for the both of them, and in some way, they could relate, they could make a bond that was so twisted and evil that most people wouldn't even want to call them mother and son.

And right at that moment, she knew how much (Y/N) meant to him. She wasn't just some crush he met in elementary school; No. She was something much more than that, she was a friend. Damian made his voice low after that, barely audible but still there, and he growled to his mother, "And if you tell anyone of my plans, you will meet the exact same fate, mother." He got up from where he was sitting, it was now three in the morning, before Damian's explanation, the mother and son enjoyed each other's company, in their own, little broken way.

"But," Damian said, looking out of his window, where the rose was still hanging on for dear life, Mercy resting on his shoulder, "If it makes any difference, any significance at all to you, I hope she is happy, wherever she is, if she is in heaven or hell. I will love her until the day I die, mother." And after that, Damian sighed a broken, defeated sigh, his breath shaky and his soul uncertain. Talia didn't respond, she couldn't, and Damian knew that she was shocked. Hell, he could bet that she was appalled in that moment, and she slid out of his door, as quietly as she came.

Neither of them said goodbye, Alfred would be ashamed.

Damian didn't have a twisting feeling in his gut about telling her his secret, and he actually felt a weight lift off of his shoulders, but he felt guilty all the same. He shook his head, it was Saturday, and by the looks of it, his family wasn't going to call him in, so, with the fireplace he owned, he set a fire, and he made tea. He read his books for the rest of the night. Page after page, letter after letter, he used to feel magic in his soul when he read with (Y/N), but now, it was just an act out of plain boredom. The tea he drank; It was bland, and it was not because of Alfred's magic cooking. The fire that burned, he didn't feel it's warmth. Even his vivid imagination he used for books was demolished, it was no longer there. But when he closed the book and drank his tea, he found that he at least had his pet Mercy on his broad shoulder.

He didn't fall asleep after that.


	21. Chapter Twenty One: Personal Hell

Hell was not a nice place, because the Bible describes it wrong. I could put up with pain, I could put up with fire and brimstone. But, if you didn't feel complete agony, then it wouldn't be complete hell, now would it? Now, being tortured by my parents, is a very different story.

No Damian to save my sanity, no little brother to love, just the old creaky mahogany chair I was chained to, and the sadistic insanity in my parent's minds.

When I was little, there was a big difference between then and now. I had a little brother to take the beating for, there was reason in my mind to put up with my parent's shit. But now, I know that Damian is alive, and my little brother is in heaven somewhere being raised by the father I have come to love, the one who got killed. I was bloody, I could taste the iron in my mouth, I could smell my body decay in front of me, like the victims of the bubonic plague, but instead of sores beginning to blacken on my body, I had bruises from my father's beatings and my mother's belt. But today, today I could sense that something extra painful was going to happen.

I ran out of tears a year after I died.

And I was correct, my mother was the only one visiting today, which meant something ten times worse was going to happen. She wasn't holding a belt, or a knife, or a gun. She was holding a needle and a thread, and for the first time in two years I felt some form of fear. She sewn my eyes shut before when I was alive, when Damian asked about the scars I evaded the question bluntly, and he never asked about my scars again. Such a sweet, sweet friend he was, I loved him. I tried to do everything in my power to be sweet to him, be kind and pretty for him, and I was sure that he loved me back, but... events transpired, and now I will never be able to see Damian, my Damian again.

Well, it's my own damn fault now, isn't it?

When she raised her hand with an evil smile plastered on her face, I followed her line of sight and saw that she wasn't aiming for my eyes. She was aiming for my mouth. I felt her hand, it was shaky with excitement, like a kid on Christmas, and his parents told him to wait, they told him not to open the presents until they were settled on the couch. She licked her lips in anticipation, before she steadied her hand and started to push the deliberately blunt needle through the corner of my lower lip. I whimpered, my throat hoarse and scratchy. If my vocal chords weren't blown out before, they certainly were now.

My mind was exhausted, it was in a state where bodily harm felt like nothing, and everything felt numb, like how certain pills make you feel this way. I wasn't some extreme Guru who mastered all eight fucking chakras, I could still feel the pain, but my inner conscience didn't care anymore. I even gave my mother a better angle, I just wanted her to be done in a shorter amount of time. I just wanted to be left alone, thinking, dreaming about Damian, my father, my little brother, anyone whom I loved.

And when my heart got too pained for those dreams, as if on time, my parents would come in again, torturing me, repeating this twisted, vicious cycle.

She finished, when she was done she examined her work with great pride. She whispered in my ear after that, "Your father will come in after a couple hours' time, he has a surprise waiting for you." She said this with a fake kindness that I didn't require any suspicion to see through. He was either going to do three things, I concluded in my deluded mind: He was going to rape me, get me drunk until I almost died of over intoxication, or he was going to let me go and crawl in the boundaries of my old home, making me wash and cook and be their slave until they strap me to the chair again.

I just wanted sleep. Better yet, I wished for a death where heaven and hell didn't exist, so my soul could die and my memories fade. Better to forget in this situation, than to remember.

And as if my prayers were answered, I slept, a dark, dreamless sleep that didn't last long enough. I woke up about ten minutes before my father came in, and with the little water I had left in my eyes, I cried. I don't know why, maybe it was the longing to see Damian's face, or the ache in my chest, the wish to just fade away into nothingness, but those prayers would never be answered, and I knew that with certainty. Through blurry eyes, my mind's eye saw black, silky tufts of hair attached to a head of pale skin, green eyes piercing my soul, his mouth telling me to fight. He was screaming at me to find some hope, but if he were there at that moment, his pleas would fall onto deaf ears, no hope would be replenished.

My father came in, with a bottle of vodka in his hand: I was right, door number two had the grand prize! Going to the brink of death with alcohol as my only friend. I spent the night crying, silently, not even a sniffle escaping my nose, the tears just kept on flowing, and it boggled me on how these tears generated themselves. Were my tears holding themselves in, or was I that emotionless? Both were great questions. He shoved the vodka down my throat, stretching the stitches so they cut themselves into my lips, and when that bottle was empty, he got whisky, then more vodka, then wine, and after that, I lost track.

At least the booze made me feel warm, I guess.


	22. Chapter Twenty Two: The Dark Philosophy of Love

Damian was perfect, in every sense of the word, and to me, he was a creation made from the hands of no one, neither God or Satan could make a being as divine as him. People say that when you are in love with someone, you can only see them for their perfections, not their flaws. But when I spent my days with Damian, I thought that his flaws were his perfections. I saw him for what he was, and he always proclaimed himself as something he wasn't. One time, he said he was a monster, another time, a lunatic, and the list goes on and on, but every time he called himself a monster, I wanted to scream in his face that he was a human. 

He was always too hard on himself, even if he didn't show other people his insecurities. And they weren't tiny insecurities, Damian didn't worry about how he looked in a suit, (He looked handsome by the way), he didn't worry how he acted when he was in the limelight, when there was no choice to avoiding it, of course. But the things he did worry about, they were the big ones. He pondered if he fit into America's society, one that was so different from the one he was born into, it being cold and desolate, where in America, it was much more affectionate, if you compared. Even things down to the simple handshake was alien to Damian, and it made him feel isolated. At first, affection was not his expertise. And then I taught him hugs, and I taught him handshakes, but the one big thing I never taught him was the biggest, most important thing to teach:

Kisses. 

And I regret every day I spend in this hell, being strapped to a chair, not teaching him love. And not the friendly type of affection, what I was going after was the compassionate, warm affection. And now, I see that Damian is hurt, all because of my stupid death that I blame myself to this very day. I blame myself for everything, not just the death. 

My father and mother did their daily routine. I never knew why they took their anger out on me, and this isn't some selfish way to blame God. I seriously never knew why they strapped me to a chair and tortured me, and they've done this ever since I can remember. When I saw the world for the first time, little brother and I sobbed. We thought that our house was our whole world, and there being millions of houses like this, in millions of miles of land, just exploded our minds with wonder. And then the police found us, we were too scared to go outside, so when the food ran out, we were found malnourished, when I look back on the pictures the police took of us, we looked like skeletons. 

I tried to be the best big sister I could. 

They told us that we were going to be safe, that we were going to find a home that would take care of us, and I remember saying "So are there scheduled beatings? What methods do they use?" The police looked horrified, when I thought that abuse was a very normal and accepted way of parenting. It was the only way I knew, but I never did it to my brother, the look of hurt on his face scared me, and something deep down said that it was wrong. They explained to us that our parents weren't very good people, and when they looked for them, they saw their dead bodies. 

They did an autopsy, and they found no poison, just over medication and intoxication. And little did I know back then, that I just got away with murder, and there was blood forever on my hands. When I found out that murder was a completely unjust act, everything clicked, and I felt the guilt pile up on me until I had to tell Damian. By then, my little brother was long dead, so I had no one to trust. No one to tell, until I could trust Damian.

What I'm getting at is one of the darkest things of all: Love. I killed my parents out of love for my little brother and Damian is starving himself out of love for me. My parents, they had no love to begin with. I love Damian, I love his family, I love my family, but the thing that makes love so dark is the fact that I will never be able to see them again, and I will have to own up to it for the rest of eternity. 

Love can do two things to you, I've learned in my lifetime. It can give you joy, it will let you bear children and build a family, it can give you a undeniable warm feeling in your chest that you would never want to go away, but it can also cripple you, it will deprive itself from your soul, leaving you just a lowly piece of meat walking on this Earth, and it is handled in fate's hands. For me and Damian, for my brother and I, fate looked down upon us, lady fate never liked me, I guess. 

My mouth is still sewn shut, my bruises still there and my scars forever on my skin. These scars would be a constant reminder of what I did, and to be honest, I am disgusted with myself. Damian understood, it was a common ground that we could both tread on, being murderers, our beings feeling regret and self hate as our own form of Godly punishment. I thought about escaping many times, but I didn't even begin to try, like how I had my thoughts about murdering other people, but I never acted on those thoughts. 'Teachers, perhaps, I could kill them,' Sometimes I thought, and with the vivid imagination I once held in my mind, I could imagine the new color of the walls being a deep burgundy, the blood oxidized and peeling, while the person's body was in shambles, intestines strung up like decorations and I, the murderer, wearing the victim's face like a mask, wearing their skin like a posh fur coat. 

And that's why I hate myself.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three: It Never Ends

It's been two days, Mister Conscience. And I don't know why my conscience is now a man, but fuck it. I have all of eternity to think about these things. But as these past two days have progressed, my parents made my eyes bleed, then they regenerated them and made my eyes bleed again. Did I also mention that in hell, people can regenerate body parts just to have them tortured just like before? So, right now, I'm blind, I'm deaf, my stitches were removed just to have my tongue cut out and my stitches replaced. 

Sometimes I wonder about what heaven would look like, feel like. Well, it wouldn't be heaven for me, like how without Damian, hell is even worse, but heaven wouldn't live up to it's true name if I had to wait for my love to get old and gray. At least in hell, I can't watch that horrible process, my Damian getting old and gray without me to grow old with, where we would have grandkids, and we would listen to music from "Our time,". I wanted to die with him, but those wishes will not be granted. And now, I'm stuck in a fifteen year old's body, the age I died. 

One way out of my torture is to dwell on memories long since past, ones that can make me cry, make me shout and laugh. Sometimes, all three. But this one, it made me do something different: It made me feel bittersweet, a feeling that was new and unknown, but it wasn't something I exactly hated, anything sweet made me happy. And as my mother lashed me with knives and shot me with guns, my subconscious drifted into this bittersweet dream. 

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"I'll kill you!" Damian screamed at one of my bullies, it was back then a little while after we met, but there was still time for Damian to grow into a protective mama bear. Apart from Zombie, I also liked to call him Mama Bear, and he hated that name with a passion. When he yelled this threat out, it wasn't false, and it wasn't one of those threats that you back down on. Damian actually meant that he would kill one of my bullies, and for a moment in time, he almost did. The poor boy had lots of broken bones, and when the school investigated, he couldn't tell them a word, so Damian got in no trouble whatsoever, and there were no eyewitnesses to rat him out, this fight was after school. 

I remember screaming at Damian to stop, that he did enough before I grabbed his shoulder tightly, and he slowed down quickly to a halt. At that point, I was crying, not for myself, not for Damian, but it was utter compassion and empathy towards the boy getting mercilessly beaten by the undercover protector of Gotham. He saw the fear in my eyes, my face twisted with confusion and sadness, and he stopped. He just hugged me afterwards, letting my tears fall. 

"I'm sorry, I...I just couldn't bear him hurting you," This was one of the rare times that Damian Wayne, the one with ice around his heart and steel for emotions actually looked guilty. His shoulders slumped, his lip split, his eyes downcast, he looked as if I were going to slap him for what he did, and that moment never came. When he looked up at me, his eyes were full of shock, if he did something out of line even once at his old home, he'd be punished severely, and later, he learned that I was much more of a forgiving person. I couldn't take his hand in fear of hurting him, so I gently gripped his wrist and led him all the way to my house, where we snuck past my (pregnant) third mother, my older sister devised a distraction in just enough time for us to head upstairs. She was one of the nicest people I have ever met, but still, there was that awkwardness of me being adopted and her being a heir to the family. 

I sat him down at my bed before I left the room to get a first aid kit, my family was always paranoid, but for once, I thanked their paranoia. When I walked into my room, I saw that Damian was holding a picture frame of my old family, the one I loved, the one that got killed. And instead of acting like a normal seven year old and being angry a him, I just walked up to him and I looked at my family with him. It was one of those photos that are selfies, but it was there before the word became popular, so you just called it a picture. My dad was holding me, I was small compared to his hulking stature, I remember the moment like it was yesterday. We were going on a picnic, my mom too tipsy to actually get in the photo, so it was just me and my dad, smiling like it was the best day of our lives, and in a sense, it was. 

Damian put the photo frame down, he wore his guilty look again while he mumbled something along the lines of "Sorry,". I sat him down on the bed again, while I cleaned his knuckles with alcohol before bandaging them, the wounds were too wide to stitch. His hands were shaking from the pain, and after I was done with that, I cleaned his split lip for him, and he didn't mumble a word of protest. I put the back of my hand against his head, and he gave me a confused look before I asked, "Are you sick, Damian?" He shook his head, he replied that he didn't feel sick. I put the first aid kit back, while we spent the night, just reading and talking, forgetting that this fight ever happened. 

When it was time for Damian to go, he slipped out of the window, quickly being covered by the darkness of Gotham city. Remember, this was only about two weeks after I met him, and by then, I knew that I loved him. Someone who I barely knew would fight for me that valiantly, it was touching in such a twisted that only I could understand. I felt an ache when I saw him leave, but I brushed it away, reasoning that he was my only friend in school, so I wouldn't want to see him go. 

He was no friend. He was my first love that never went anywhere, a title that he will always keep.

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My mother left. Damn, this tactic might actually work.


	24. Chapter Twenty Four:Deciding if It's My Saviour or My Demise

This tactic that I found a week ago really is working, even if it makes my emotions throb ten times worse than it did before. Before, I didn't want to think about Damian, I focused on the pain, I persuaded myself that I was inevitably going to snap one of these days, and go insane, aspiring to forget about any emotion I once held toward the boy I fell in love with. I wanted to forget him, as soon as possible, so the stabbing pain in my heart could at least fade to a dull ache in my chest. I haven't touched water in three years, I've licked puddles, but I haven't washed, and one thing I know for damn sure is that water can wash away dirt, but alcohol can wash away pain, albeit only for a short time. 

Don't get me wrong, I hate drinking, but anything, anything at all to numb the pain. There was a point in time where I couldn't think, I couldn't feel, my brain cells and liver were being turned into mush, but something in my soul spawned itself, making itself some sort of peaceful tranquility that only the burning taste of whiskey could bring. When this hypnotic trance faded away, I hated myself to the fullest extent. Damian wouldn't want me to be an alcoholic, even if I were trapped inside of a hell that was dark, and dingy and cold. 

So I started to refuse the bottles, I refused the thing that gave me a fake tranquility that I couldn't even call my own, and now, as a punishment, I have those very glass shards stuck in my skin, the aged wine getting into my veins and messing with my head, distorting memories, focusing and fading. I can't remember what we talked about, what we did, where we were, but it was raining, and he was at peace, and the only thing I could see clearly in my mind's eye was Damian's graceful, lovely face that looked as if it were sculpted by the hands of Michelangelo. A small, drunken smile formed on my lips before it quickly faded away again. 

People say that you don't know that you're insane until you end up in a padded cell, that you don't know that you're depressed until you end up killing yourself. But there is something that I do know, something deep down inside of me is desiring to see my Damian again, my Zombie, my Bear. And no amount of whiskey or bullets can make me stop loving him, even after Earth is set on fire by the sun, even after the last star winks out in the universe, I am afraid that I will always keep on loving him. 

I felt dizzy even though I was sitting down, and I felt this itch to walk even though the logical side of my brain said that it was impossible. So I sat there, just thrashing my head around and laughing like some delusional little kid. And when I got tired of that, I curled my toes, balled up my hands into fists, I did anything to make sure that I was alive, in a sense. My heart was no longer beating, and my blood is no longer pumping through my veins, but I wanted to feel something, anything, to get the proof that I needed to make sure that I could feel. 

And this proof wasn't physical, even though the feeling was, but I needed proof that I was there, that I wasn't in some fake nightmare that I could easily wake up from, because if it was, then all this torture, all this insanity would be for absolutely nothing, and the love, the utter heartache I felt for Damian would be unnecessary. I demanded this proof until my feet grew numb again and my knuckles that were scraping against the chair were now bloody. I screamed as hard as I could until my throat was scratchy, I cried until my eyes burned. 

From wanting to forget the pain, to needing it to save my sanity. 

When I tired myself, when my vocal chords were blown again and my tears dried, I felt awake, like how you have a headache all day and it suddenly clears, or when you get out of a hot stuffy room to be met by a cold gust of wind. I knew that this wonderful feeling wouldn't last forever, I knew that in a day or two at the most, it would die quickly. My regained spirit would fade away again, my sharp senses would become dull. I knew this inevitability, and I knew that I would die along with the pain, not physically, I was already dead, but mentally, I would no longer exist. 

And even though my world just started the count to doomsday was nearing its last moments. 

There were no windows in this room, (It's a basement), but somehow, a bird snuck into the room with me, and for once in three, painful years, I was happy, and I was hopeful. No, I was blissful, and I didn't cry tears of anguish or melancholy, but I cried tears of joy, I could see life that was different from my sadistic parents. It wasn't a dove, but then again, doves held no place in hell, they weren't welcome, they didn't now the pain I had to go through, the heavenly, beautiful creatures. Doves didn't deserve to look at me, I was just another soul among the damned, I was ugly and horrid and damaged beyond repair, and I didn't want something as graceful as a dove to look at me. 

I was the Hunchback, the Frankenstein, and they were the Esmerelda, the villagers. 

Instead, it was something much more fitting in my situation, it was a crow, and even though it was a curse, a sign of horrible times of war and death and famine, it was life, and I could care less if it were a snake just looking for another carcass to feed on. It was something alive- Well, kind of. I was in the afterlife, but how would a person describe it? It was breathing, chirping, and it was ruffling it's feathers, so if it wasn't alive, why wouldn't it do all of those things? And then, looking at the young, baby crow, I figured it out: Death was just another part of life, it was just a barrier a person has to break to move on, just like being birthed in this horrible world of ours. 

And I talked to the little thing, it seemed to understand, and a person has to see that this is the only soul I could voluntarily talk to in three whole years, so I took the first chance that presented itself to me. It hopped up and rested itself on the arm of the chair, nuzzling my chained hand, in a way that couldn't have more of a fitting word, the word being: Love. And I didn't realise that I missed love, that I missed affection and warmth so much until it showed it to me. And this crow, to me, represented much more than a omen of death. It was my saviour, it was my humanity, it was my compassion. 

It was my Mercy.


	25. Chapter Twenty Five: Concluding My Fate Over the Picking of Petals

When my parents come, Mercy is smart enough to hide in a dark corner where her fluffy black feathers make her invisible. But when they leave, she leaves a quiet chirp, one that is barely audible, to question if she could come out. I let her, and she sneaks out of hell to check up on my love, my Bear, my Zombie, my Damian Wayne. Crows are very smart birds, and with that intelligence comes a slyness that can compete with foxes, and they can escape death and life as if it were easier than flying to them, as if it were an in-built instinct that has been passed down through their generations, a knowledge they have known since the beginning of the Earth. 

When she came back, I knew I had to only go to sleep to see through her eyes, I only need to dream to see my Damian again. It's like a VHS tape, it's already recorded, you just have to put it in the player to watch it. I don't know where she went to sneak out, it was too dark in the room to actually see. But, some of the dreams were blurry, I could sense that I was on Damian's shoulder or in his big hand, but the words he spoke sounded muffled. Like the time when it was just before Talia came to his house, or when he spoke to Talia. I never got to hear him say that he loved me, and I can't even decide if that's for the better or for the worse. I don't even know if he loved me, anyways. 

And don't act as if hell is any easier just because I get to see the living world, do you know how hard it is to see the love of your life starve himself? To cut himself, and to get depressed, and it's all your fault. For me, hell isn't any easier, and some could even argue that it's even harder to bear now, the burdens stacking themselves on my broken shoulders. Everyone always said that the cold hard truth hurts more than it heals. 

And right now, the VHS tape is playing. 

It seems that Damian just came home from his nightly shift, and he was bloody. Really, really bloody. He had a limp, and the first thing he did when he got home was sit on his kitchen island, not even caring if it were his couch or a cold slab of steel, he was that exhausted.

I never saw him so tired.

He took off his uniform slowly, each item peeling off of his skin one by one. First, his gloves, then his mask, after that, his hood, then his pants. My subconscious closed its nonexistent eyes when the rest got off, and when I opened then again I made sure that he came out of his shower with a towel. At least he had some decency for Mercy. I thanked God.

He stitched himself up, and without putting on any pajamas, he just dropped on the couch with his towel strung lazily around his waist. He cuddled Mercy, and when he did, I felt the warmth of Damian's chest spread throughout my body, I felt his arms wrap around my frame, even if I wasn't there, Mercy could be in my place. His breathing was shallow, and when Mercy looked up, I could see that Damian's face was twisted with sadness. He was having nightmares, again. 

"Don't...Don't touch...Her!" His voice was hoarse, but it risen nonetheless. His voice transitioned from a deep baritone in his chest when he was younger to a scratchy whine now, and I am pretty sure that it's supposed to work in reverse. Mercy sneaked from his chest to his ribs, and I felt the transition. His ribs were ribs, not abs or fat or even the tiniest bit of stomach, but they were ribs, or at least, skin on bone, the skin tightly drawn over the bones like drum parchment over a frame. Damian whimpered, his face contorted in horror. He was having nightmares about my death, and I am almost certain that his mind got to the part where my life finally ended, where Professor Pyg slit my throat, the cut being too shallow to end it immediately, so I had to lay there, dying, suffocating, bleeding out of my neck, and I remember with crystal clarity that the last thing I saw was my best friends face, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, his lips were chapped and his skin was as pale as snow, it was covered in a clammy layer of sweat. 

The last thing I heard was a similar story, it was a cry of anguish and grief, and after that I even heard a few sobs escape his Robin persona, breaking his tough, crime fighting facade. Everyone had to break at one point in their lives, even if it were just the tiniest of cracks in their frame, they would be okay, and they would have the ability to move on. When this even took place, Damian snapped, and I acknowledge that it's all my fault, and I will spend the rest of eternity in hell feeling guilt, a undeniable heartbreak that once eternity is over, will leave a heart that is barley ticking. A heart that has no hope, but when the torture ends, it won't even feel joy. It won't feel anything, and when I see Damian's face, I won't even be able to recall his name, his face, the memories we made faded and cracked and colorless, forever in the back of my mind. 

And sadly, I know that for a fact. 

The warmth from Damian's body left me, and from being a tiny bird to a little girl felt weird, I felt like I was having a growth spurt that progressed at the speed of light. I felt some light spread throughout my body, and no, it wasn't divine. It was more like a white hot burn, like I was a piece of metal being shaped by a hammer, pounding mercilessly against my being, then I would be dumped in a vat of water, the contrast of hot to cold being too much to handle. I would always faint after I saw through Mercy's eyes, and I could handle pain, but this was too much, and after I was forged by the hand of a blacksmith, the dark but sweet embrace of a dreamless sleep would hold me in it's arms, reminding me of a dark wild plum, it's nectar sweet. 

And my parents would come in again. And again. And again.


	26. Chapter Twenty Six: A Change in Scenery, for the Better, or for the Worse?

I never expected them to come, never. One of their voices were deep and gurgly, a spawn of pure evil, I was sure. It sounded aggravated, but it held itself back for some reason. The other one sounded fat. The other one sounded really fat, like it was tuckered out from just walking over to my parent's house. And then I knew that these weren't any normal demons coming to collect a tax, these were cardinal sins. One, Anger. The other one, Gluttony. 

Shit. 

They spoke with my parents, something about "Anger, my lord, that little whore practically likes the pain!" That was my mom. She always liked to call me a whore, even back when I didn't know what a whore was. And I remember the moment too, I was at Damian's house, and he called Ms. Ginger a whore for wearing a revealing outfit that day, and I asked him what a whore was. He explained to me what a whore was, and I thought to myself 'Why would Mom call me a whore?' 

Now, it doesn't affect me. Back then, it devastated me. I still wanted to love her, even though I was the cause of her untimely death and she was very, very abusive. I thought that we could be one big, happy family in heaven where we all belonged, because of the naive reasoning I held in my heart. I thought that we could all turn it around, and we could forget all of the bad days and the painful things we did to each other. But when I met Damian, I understood the world, not because he was mean to me or explained the truth brutally, but I saw that he was the only family I ever needed. He was a brother, he was a friend, and he put something in my chest that made me blush when I was flustered, it made me overjoyed when I saw even a minor hint of his face or name or when I smelled his scent, it made me feel...Love. And what he put in my chest, it was the symbol of love, it was a heart. A beating, healthy heart. And now look what I've done with it. 

My heart is barely even beating, it's shriveled up and black and clinging onto life, Mercy is it's only support. I really am thankful for that bird. 

The sins came into the basement, and they saw the pitiful remains of (Y/N) (L/N). Starved, dirty, insane, and heartbroken. And for the first time in three years, the chains that bound my wrists and feet were unlocked, but I wasn't joyful. I wasn't even curious, I didn't want to know anything that was about to happen to me. They just scowled at me, grabbed my broken but numb arms tightly, and lead me away from my house. I expected a world like Gotham when I stepped outside, but all I saw was fire and brimstone, and I could hear the anguished cries of the damned. 

I would stop to stare, but the two sins dragged me along with them, forcing me to look at my feet. We walked for what it seemed like hours, strolling from fire and brimstone from a desolate tundra wasteland, and we came upon a well. It wasn't any normal, pleasant well, everything about it seemed... off. It was warped to the side, and I knew that it was once made from red bricks and oak wood, but the snow worn it down until the only color it owned was grey, and it was a rather large well. Something a person can fit into. 

Something a person can deliberately fall down. 

And that's what happened, I didn't need any order from a cardinal sin to know what was about to happen, what I was being forced to do. No words were spoken, but I could hear the girly little squeals of delight come from gluttony and dark chuckles come from anger. I propped my knee up on the well's frame, and I looked down. The water was black, it was null and void, it didn't even shine like normal water. It didn't shine at all. 

At least this was better than being with my parents. I can't stand them, and that's not some moody teenager saying that, people already know what they've done to me, so I feel no need to explain.

I sighed, and looked at the demons one more time. They weren't smiling, and Anger said "you know, for a kid that killed her parents, you look like a nice person." Now, I never expected a demon to say this, let alone Anger of all demons, so I just looked at him with a blank stare for a while before I turned my head back around, looking at the bottom of the well. 

"I was protecting my brother. My parents were threatening to kill them, and I know what I did. I murdered people, so I have every right to be here. I'll see you later, gentlemen." At that point, I didn't really care about what came out of my mouth. And they were shocked that I called them gentlemen, and before I could give them time to come up with a snarky response, I dropped myself in the well. The deep, murky water got closer and closer in my view, and the wind howled in my ears, it blowing against my face, only giving me a sample of the coldness that was about to come. 

When I hit the water, it felt like concrete. Some of my bones broke apart, I didn't feel any pain at that point, but I could still feel them snap. It's like snapping a pencil under a desk, you don't know when it's going to snap until you hear it break in half. Then, the numbness faded away, and the burning began. Not like the boiling hot burning you feel in the fiery hell that most people fear, but the cold type of bun that is ten times more agonizing. 

Oh, so this is hell now. 

And then, the numb came back. I looked at my hands, frost was already forming at my fingertips, and then my hair floated into view, it was frozen stiff. It was kind of pretty to look at, and if I weren't under such circumstances, I would love to look at the rest of my freezing body, but before I could, I blacked out. 

Oh, so this is my hell now.


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven: For the Worse

Okay, I can see why they moved me here. 

Not seeing a single other person made me really scared, and I've learned that any face is comforting, even if it's my parent's faces. And I should have prepared myself for this, I knew that being alone in general was scary. I felt like that before I met Damian, after my brother died. And I know that my case is unique, but that feeling of loneliness, that feeling of hopelessness is very common, and everyone feels it at least once in their lives, but not seeing one face, not being surrounded by bustling life, by people who were busied in their own lives is another story. And because my ancestors have learned to stick together, to depend on the socialization of other human beings to keep themselves sane, I was terrified. 

I am sure that the things that Anger and Gluttony felt for me were not compassion, but pity. 

And hell is kind of weird, I was no longer drowning, but I was in a abyss of black, and the freezing cold was still surrounding me, but not to the point of death. Not to the point of tranquility. I tried to move my hands into view, I couldn't move my neck. I might be stuck in a fetal position for the rest of eternity, but hey, if I can't feel it in my back, then I won't complain. My hands were purple and blue and yellow, a somehow evil display of colors painting itself on the canvas of my skin, and it hurt. I haven't felt real pain in three whole years, and this... This was relieving. Because in my mind, I see pain as a sign of humanity, and that is something I have not owned in a very, very long time. I liked the pain. It gave me warmth in a world of cold, emotion in a world of monotone. 

And this type of hell blocked me from thinking, it was so freezing cold, the little silver cord connecting my train of thought to my sanity snapped and frayed, and the only thing I could convey was emotion. I couldn't think of Damian's face, I couldn't see it in my mind if I tried, but what I could do is love him, I could feel the emotion that I devoted only to Damian for years. I wanted to cry, but my eyes were frozen shut. I wanted to scream, but my jaw was shut tight, I wanted to punch, but there was nothing to punch except an endless black abyss, but I knew that if I tried I wouldn't get any satisfaction out of my fit. 

I can't do anything, I can do everything, and it's up to no one and everyone to decide. 

This is the type of torture that you can't blame a person for, and in a way, that was the most infuriating. I can't direct my anger at anyone other than myself, my non-coherent thoughts trying to break my mind with pain and loss and emotion. Sometimes the thoughts would become coherent, but only for a couple of hours. I would try to think of Damian through those short bursts of thoughts, but this time, I thought of a girl named Mackenzie. 

I bear no ill will toward the girl, but I would be rather thinking about Damian. 

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She had very red hair, and freckles if I can recall. Her eyes were brown, and as Halloween she dressed as herself and claimed that she was Mary Jane. t was quite amusing when I saw her argue with the teacher. I remember that I dressed up as the blue-haired Coraline that year, and Damian went as Wybie. People thought that we had the best costumes. 

But one day, it was after school, and we were still in the classroom, Mackenzie walked in. She walked right up to Damian and asked him on a date, of course the teacher wasn't there. Damian just blankly stared at her for a little while, and I was in a desk in the corner hearing everything. 

Damian tried politely to decline, that didn't work. He said no, but she was persistent. Finally, he just decided to ignore her, and he grabbed be by the hand, and I took both of our backpacks, Damian would have forgotten them. When we got out of the door, we could hear quiet crying, and I let Damian walk ahead. I wanted to stay behind. 

I opened the classroom door once again, to see Mackenzie standing there, she didn't move an inch, but her hands were up to her eyes and her posture was crooked. I carefully walked up to her, and put a hand on her back, and that gave her some shock, and I guessed that I was quiet. She looked at me, flesh pale, eyes red and lips abused by teeth, and she asked me in a hateful tone, anger in her eyes "What do you want?" 

I couldn't exactly respond to her question with the point I was trying to make, so I discarded her question, but before I could speak, she said "What do you have that I don't? Money?" I almost laughed at her question, and I would have if the situation were different. I shook my head, trying to come up with a response. I didn't want to leave two questions unanswered, that would be too much.

"I can't tell you. I'm sorry. My family, they work hard, but they don't get much money for themselves at the end of the day, and you can't exactly judge yourself correctly. If you did, then the results would be biased, so, I'm sorry. I can't tell you," After that, she screamed "BULLSHIT!" And her silent cries transformed into sobs. 

And what did I do? I hugged her. She may have seen me as a enemy before that moment, and possible even after, but at that very minute, it didn't matter if I were Damian's best friend, or if she was his normal stalker. We just were two human beings after the same boy, trying to make sense of this messy love triangle that we all unintentionally created. And it wasn't some dramatic, heartbreaking love triangle, it was one that was more...Subtle. It wasn't like the Hunger Games or the Twilight Saga, where the female fantasy takes over and makes it into something that it really isn't, this was just about three kids, one was his best friend, other was in love with him, but got to him too late, because I was already there. 

We haven't really talked that much after that, and as Mackenzie aged to the point where she was seventeen, (Yes, she was two years older than Damian and I), she drank alcohol and did drugs, and since her stalking skills were still slightly sharp, she found out my phone number, and every once in awhile she would use that power to insult me while she was on one of her strong highs or drunken rampages. When Damian saw them, he seriously asked me if I wanted her to be killed. 

She was such a poor girl. 

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I couldn't even move anymore. I couldn't breathe, and as my thoughts faded away, I wished for them to come back again, almost as much as I missed Damian. 

Almost. Not as much. Not nearly as much.


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight: Blurs of Lawyers with Wings

I can't remember the last time I opened my eyes, or heard something, or felt something, either if it was physical, or a deep down emotion, I can't tell. It's all been a blur, and emotion and physical pain have bled so much into each other that it's just made a horrible smudge, a terrifying, disfigured ghost, and they killed me, if I wasn't already dead before.

But there was something off, and I could feel it in my soul, something that I tried my best to preserve. You know that feeling when someone is watching? I have that feeling, but I know that I am in a different place, and for once in three years, I felt safe. And it wasn't like I was scared before, but that feeling of comfort doesn't exactly make itself present in hell. When I tried to open my frozen-shut eyes, I felt that they opened with ease. I was thawed, and I was under something fuzzy, and the frostbite wasn't there. When my ears stopped ringing, (This was after a very, very long time), I heard murmurs coming from smooth, silky voices. And it took some time for my eyesight to clear up, for the fog to fade away, but when it did, I saw different colored lights of red and blue, creating a fantastic spectrum of purples where those differing colors ended and I began, and I was under silk sheets that were black with white dots, but the hue that the lights gave off made the blanket look like the universe was jam packed into the fabric of time. When I propped my elbows up, (Feeling no pain), I saw that all of the people were gone.

Probably all of the voices in my head again.

I got up, no pain. I walked around, and still, no pain. Is this heaven, or is this hell? Well, if this is hell, then this is very pretty. There were bookshelves, and tea sets, and flowers and paintings, and I didn't know where the lights came from, and I was so incredibly confused, and that confusion transitioned not only into fear, but into pure terror. My world went blurry, and I felt dizzy, and much to my surprise, I passed out.

And I woke up again, neatly tucked into the galaxy blanket, and under those lovely hues of bright red and a deep ocean blue, making my body seem smooth and lovely with a royal purple. And I noticed that the rest of the room was like the blanket I was under, black and minimalist, but highlighted by the stars that the lights forced out. I tried to get up again, and I reminded myself that I had to take baby steps, and baby steps I took.

I still didn't trust this situation, I thought that if I found out that this was hell, then maybe I could lay in a bed forever.

I felt weak, like I had the flu, but ten times worse. I had to lean on walls, and I had to slide down them to get some temporary rest too, and after I got my rest, I had to cling to something, anything, and one of those times, I clung onto a hand. It was a soft hand, it was smooth and dainty, and it was a woman's hand. When I looked her in the eye, I saw that she was very, very beautiful. She had brown hair and deep hazel eyes, and her skin was smooth and pale, her face was twisted with worry. "You should be resting!" She claimed in a gentle voice, and rest in a bed was a very comforting thought, but I needed some answers first. I asked her where I was, why I was here, is this hell and when will it end, and she explained to me that this was heaven, and being judged for your sins was much like being judged for a crime:

Guilty until proven Innocent, and I was innocent.

And after that, I cried into her arms, and these tears were not like any other for three years: They were tears of joy and relief, and she rubbed my back while I quietly shed these tears onto her shoulder. She explained to me quietly that she was my guardian angel, and she would defend me after the day I would be condemned to hell, and she would not give up until I was proven innocent, and I mumbled back so many thank you's that the word practically lost it's meaning when I was done. She also explained that heaven can change your age for you, so I was in a eighteen year old's body, my curves more defined when I actually looked at them, my face fairer and the scars that were made in hell were now gone, although she knew that I would want to keep the scars I owned when I was alive.

Rehabilitation was a very slow process that took three weeks of my time, it consisted of listening to the artisan but bustling life that were seeping through the windows, and some quiet classical music playing in the background, while I read books that only heaven could posses, and I found out that humanity is really clueless when it comes to science, philosophy or morals and things like that.

And I wondered where Mercy was, maybe she was caught by my parents and thrown into that well, but one day when I was sick, she came fluttering in, gracefully, she could fly in only a few weeks after her birth. My guardian angel tried to shoo her away, but before she could ever flap her wings in the other direction, I stopped my angel, (Called Sophie), and explained to her that Mercy are my eyes, they are my ears and she is my soul when she goes into the other world, the living world, to see how Damian is holding up. I had to explain to Sophie the process in which I could see Damian, and she was intrigued, heaven nor hell had any case like that. When she finally deemed me able to walk, (She was overprotective, but not as much as Damian, through. If something bad happened to me, he would find the person responsible and almost kill them. I thought it was sweet), we went to heaven's library, and searched any book we could to find out how even I, in hell, could send a messenger to be my eyes in a time of blindness.

We found that a messenger is the opposite of your spirit animal, so it your spirit animal was a cat, your messenger would be a dog, so when my messenger was a crow, my spirit animal is a fox, (A/N: Just roll with it), and Sophie told me that there was a whole branch of identified spirit animals, so we went to the fox's chamber and we found my type of fox, the majesty fox. We ruled above all other foxes, we were regal, not sly, and we held the blood of nobility, while crows were harbingers of the end times, (Fuckin' Skyrim reference if anyone gets it). And suddenly, I wanted to find Damian's animal, and we found that it was a white bengal tiger, not royal, not rabble, but a loyal guard of whomever it loved. It was fierce and compassionate, and when Sophie turned her head to look at something else, I read that, 'If it's love is taken away from the tiger, no matter how many miles it will walk, it will search the ends of the Earth to see it again. And if the thing it cares so much about is dead, it will devote its life to preserving its memory, and the tiger's life will be so devastated that it will mask it's own injured soul with the dwelling of the loved one that was lost," And I thought that situation was too specific. But then again, most Majesty Foxes are destined to die a horrible death. 

When we left the grand, gold-plated library, Sophie quietly explained to me that spirit animals are only exclusive to those who believe in the lord. (I am so sorry if you don't believe in God, but, for the sake of the story, and please keep reading, you are a Christian). 

We went back to my house, and I walked to my galaxy room, reading jeweled books while Sophie converses with me on humanity's progresses, their faults, things like that. And suddenly, but not so dramatically, I didn't really feel at home.


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine: Watching Amy Fucking Winehouse Perform on a Stage

A/N: I just want to let everyone know that I don't own any of the copyrighted materials in this chapter or any other chapter, and as long as I say that I hold no place in the copyright, and as long as I say that these materials go to their respective owners, I have the right to incorporate them in my art.

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Heaven was a happy facade that quite frankly, I wanted to play along with. Sophie saw right through me though, and she said that many people felt this way when they... departed. Sophie always used gentle words when talking about the heavier subjects, and personally, I hated it. I didn't know why I couldn't see my Mercy anymore, why I couldn't see my Damian. I felt like I was being lied to, being overly coddled by people who thought I couldn't take the truth.

But, I just wanted to play along, I didn't have any strength left to fight for the truth I so badly desired, my heart wasn't ready to see Damian's abnormally thin face again, at least until I got my strength back, when the longing to peer through Mercy's eyes came to a full force.

But for now, I wanted to indulge myself in the wonders of heaven, and I wanted to relax- God forbid I've been relaxing for the past three years with a broken heart and a mind that's done so many mental gymnastics that it broke it's back. Sophie suggested I go to a Elvis concert, or maybe the Beatles, but I wanted something more laid back than those two groups. Something a little more explicit, something a little more accommodating to my heartache, because Elvis' songs sometimes had heavy lyrics, but they were always sounding too happy. The Beatles, well, they really needed no explanation to their lyrics. No one got the context to their lyrics because they were always on drugs. And granted, someday in the eternity I spent in heaven, I would absolutely love to see Elvis and the Beatles, but today wasn't that day. I wanted songs that you knew it had a story behind it, so dirty and graceful that you would ever regret that they would ever leave the Earth without their final goodbyes.

I wanted to see Amy Winehouse.

I was too tired to see something as exciting as Elvis, but I wanted something less boring than a laid back Beatles song that goes on for seven minutes, and Amy was the perfect median between the two, and we had the unknown relation of losing someone that you loved. Sophie wanted to cheer me up with some exciting music, maybe take my mind completely off of Damian for a couple years, but when I explained to her that I couldn't live with myself if I lost my best friend's memory, Sophie backed off and let me choose what I did and didn't do. She seemed off even though I only met her a couple months ago, she seemed pitiful and sad, like a mother giving her son a thin lipped smile when she was explaining the concept of death to her child for the first time.

So, we went out and drove a couple of miles to a small bar, and when I even looked at the outside of the rustic looking bar that could be easily excused for a cafe, I knew that tonight, I could finally get my mind off of things, and for once in my life I could drop the burdens off of my shoulders and let them relax. The interior of the bar was the thing that really surprised me; It looked like a 1920's jazz club, and to my pleasant surprise, I was taken into a dressing room where the clothes were different, they looked like they were from the 1940's. Sophie picked out a dress for me, and she ordered the makeup artists to put on a nice shade of red for my face, red eyeshadow, red rouge, red lipstick, and red fingernails with the addition of red bracelets and red heels. Lots of red, but the black dress made everything balance.

Sophie was in a white dress with blue makeup to oppose my red. She had this all planned out. She still looked pretty though.

We took two seats together, while we heard the roar of clapping all around us as the lady herself swayed up on the stage, with her background players and hues for lights, ones that greatly resembled my galaxy room, just without the magnificent stars, but in the jazzy club, she was the only star that needed to be there, and she proved it by singing with a slightly scratched but warm voice, like a smoothly playing record player.

Each song of hers, each lyric, each word reminded me of Damian. Even the ones when she sang about being independent, and alone, without love but herself as a comfort, it reminded me of some of the best and worst moments I have spent with my fortunate friend, Damian Wayne. Times when he took me to the movies without the kisses, when he took me to the park without the romantic stargazing, and I'm pretty sure the love we were feeling were two different kinds or love, his platonic, mine, the love where you want to marry him. You want to start a family with him, and you want to grow old and grey and fantastically wrinkled with him, but now, the possibility of that was now zero going down to the negatives, as it that weren't enough for fate to torture us.

But, you know, when he met Nightwing's daughter and kissed her on one of Gotham's rooftops, I was alright with it, because he was at my side. When he had to get girlfriends at the age of ten and up for the limelight, (And to assure that he wasn't gay to his family), I was alright with it, because he was at my side, and when he died for a year and wasn't at my side, it was a proven fact that I loved him with all of my heart, and I wasn't okay. And now, he isn't at my side again, and I'm not going to be okay, as much as I want to forget him, as much as I want to love him like he loved me, the platonic way, the deed can't be done, and it's impossible.

Everything's impossible. 

When the show ended and everyone was leaving silent tears were streaming down my face. Sophie didn't notice until she looked at me, and she wiped my tears and said that she would be waiting outside for me. That opened a window for opportunity for Amy Winehouse to sit down and say, "It was a boy wasn't it? You two get separated when you died?" I looked at her with shock, how could she know that much about me and sit by me for only ten seconds? She seemed to know my confusion and said, "I've been in the works, kid. I know when it's a boy you loved. Did he love back?" 

"I'm not sure," I responded, and it was Amy's turn to be confused, and it was my turn to explain. I said everything, about how we were best friends and how he was so, so kind and sweet to me, a side that was for my eyes only. I said that the was like a feral tiger and a fluffy kitten rolled into one, how he would attack other people but crave the attention he deserved from loved ones. I described his looks and his way with words and the gracefulness he held as he walked down a hallway, even to the smallest things like when the expression in his face changes, or the way he speaks. When Amy replied, she gave me some deep advice that no guardian angel could give me, that no God could say. 

"Then keep on lovin' him, girly. 'Cause that's the only thing you can do."


	30. Chapter Thirty: The Truth

Lies are kisses, and the truth is a cold hard slap. 

But I'd rather be told the truth. When Sophie told me a couple of months after I went to Amy Winehouse's show, I couldn't handle it. 'I can't, I can't, I can't,' Those were the present tense words of what I couldn't do. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and they only thing I could do is feel unbearable pain. Not just in my heart, but everywhere. I was in hell all over again, if this was heaven then I would have Damian at my side, doing the things that weird best friends do, like read together or listen to Beethoven close to a campfire, you know, the things that not normal best friends do. But, for God knows how long, I won't be able to feel that joy. Never. And I knew it as a fact that Damian would go to hell, but maybe I could spend my time with him, at the very least, but now, I was stuck in heaven. So, the roles were all reversed. Heaven was hell and hell was heaven. 

I was just like how I was when I first got to heaven, skinny and broken. Damaged, and the only repairman delicate enough to tinker with me was Damian, and of course, I will never see him again, so my heart will always have bent cogs, and over time, Damian's skilled hands will grow numb and shaky and rough. There was a time when I was in my sad state where I just stared at the stars of heaven in my bedroom before a thought came to my mind: 'In the whole universe of possibilities, why did it have to turn out like this? Why can't I just be happy with my Damian?' I didn't notice that I was crying until the sheets beneath me were soaked. My ears rang and my eyes stung, but I passed out. 

Even sleep was troubling, I didn't have dreams, but there was this type of distressing feeling that followed me into the claws of slumber. I squirmed and I kicked, the invisible dreams I could not see were terrorizing me, Damian was subconsciously haunting me. You know when you wake up and smell a scent that isn't there in the afternoon? I smelt Damian's scent, I saw his ghost by the window, reading a book that was worn and faded, used too many times by his skeletal hands that used to be muscular. 

When Sophie told me, she let me see through Mercy's eyes again, or at least she said that I had the permission to. I didn't look through the everlasting baby crow's eyes for a very long time, a month or two at the most. At least Mercy was still a baby in heaven, when she was in the real world though I knew at that her feathers were formed and her beak blackened, her eyes brown instead of blue and her voice grown. 

After the initial horror of truth, I had a dream. It wasn't anything really special, but with recent events and me finding out what was done, I took it as a sign, and I am glad that I did. That I took it so seriously. In my dream, space was all around me, something so familiar to me, not frightening, thanks to Damian. I felt comfortable and at so much ease, like I was in the heaven I wondered about as a small child. It was sad that I could only achieve this state that heaven was supposed to give me in the first place, in my own dreams, it was something that they couldn't provide. Damian and I always used to stargaze, out when we could take breaks from life, and just escape our daily terrors of PTSD and Anxiety and harsh emotions, we could just take ourselves to the countryside, go to one of our favorite fields, and have a picnic to the point where it got too cold for me, so Damian gave me his coat. We would fall asleep on the grassy hill together, the stars being our one and only true home, the constant in our lives that never seemed to leave us. The stars that we both loved gave us light, it gave us hope, and it would prepare us for the return to the horrible stench of the city. 

In my dream, I felt comfortable in space, I felt a shoulder touching mine, I didn't even need to look to my side to know who it was, I've bumped shoulders with this person many times, and even though we never got romantically up close, I knew every inch of his body, of his soul and of his working mind. We shared no words, when my eyes craved to see his face, there was no face to be seen, just a small, round shaped galaxy attached to a body, but it didn't scare me in the slightest. In fact, I thought that the galaxy upon his muscular neck was quite fitting for him, and I figured that my head was replaced with a galaxy too. Hid galaxy was jaggedly shaped at the edges, the colors of blue dust, green light and black stars just truly amazing, it was like I was seeing a display of the essence of beauty, tranquility, the mix of stars represented a peace that the both of us knew we could never achieve separated. The black would camouflage with the stars if it weren't so glittery, and there were so many different types of greens and blues, from pastel greens and baby blues to greens as deep as forests and blues as dark as the ocean. Only together could we be genuinely happy. He intertwined his cold fingers with mine, and subconsciously, I felt shivers run up and down my skin like I was in a tub of cold water, the liquid surrounding me like space in my dream. 

And we just sat there, the cold water of the tub surrounding us, until I closed my eyes, and heard the turn of a faucet and a rush of strong water, my toes immediately freezing at first, but then getting numb to the cold like I did with Damian's hand, which in fact, was no longer there. And the dream left as swiftly as it came, me just soaking in a bath with my fingers getting blissfully pruny, my breathing deep and my mind clear. 

But when I woke up, I met with the sun, and the painful light, but none of it as painful as the truth that won't budge, the truth that can't be reversed. I had to live with the fact that instead of three years passing, it was now five, Damian was twenty, and I missed two, important years of watching him. He was older now, more matured, and the thing that terrorized me was that I couldn't watch him grow and develop, and I don't even know if he got over me yet, not even a part of me anymore wants him to forget I ever existed. I want him to be happy, no matter what the cost, so that morning I asked Sophie if I could destroy any trace left of me in the world of the living, and she silently shook her head. 

And when I looked through Mercy's eyes once again, I saw that Damian hadn't forgotten about me. In fact, quite the contrary.


	31. Chapter Thirty One: Pills

The relationship between the both of them was strained to say the least. 

The Bat was sane, the Jester the complete opposite. The dynamics of said relationship was like fire and water, people say that opposites attract, but fire and water just cancel each other out. They eventually kill each other. Bruce didn't believe in the saying "Opposites Attract," because the saying was about magnets, not necessarily people. He wouldn't want to degrade a person down to a measly magnet. But somehow, Bruce was wrong for once, because when he fought the Joker, each punch he landed on the Prince of Crime's body made him feel absolutely horrible. But to protect the mask, the facade of Batman, he had to make sure that he cracked down on Joker the hardest, and each time the Joker escaped he felt even more heartache, not being Batman or Brucie the Playboy, he felt heartache just as a human being, just as Bruce Wayne. 

The first time Batman saw his number one criminal start to break down is when they were both still young, Batman being twenty seven, the Joker, twenty five. It was another normal night of saving Gotham city from one of the Joker's evil plans, the fight taking place in another abandoned warehouse, the green haired man holding a brunette hostage that when Batman saved her, he earned a passionate kiss before he pushed one of her pressure points, making her pass out so he could order Jim to take the unconscious lady home. Again, just a stereotypical night for the Bat. 

Nothing seemed out of place, Dick was asleep in his bedroom when Batman decided to take the Prince of Crime back to Arkham Asylum. When he first saw Joker get undressed to get in some black short shorts and a straight jacket, (From behind a one-sided mirror of course), the Bat saw that his criminal was very small, very skinny, and somehow, slightly feminine. He had a fine ass. At that time, he learned why the Jester got his green and purple suit two sizes too big. After he dressed out, Bruce made sure to escort the Joker to his cell, gripping his twisted arm confined in the straight jacket, and when they got to the monochrome door of steel, the Joker stopped in his tracks. Batman didn't speak, he knew that the Joker was going to say something, so he waited. 

He saw the inhale of air, the tensing of shoulders and that stance of attention Joker was expressing, and Joker said "This time, I want to get better," After he said that, he rolled his feet that were currently on the tips of his toes, to the balms of his heels, rolling back and forth and forth and back until he continued, "But... We both know that I won't get better, don't we?" This question took Batman slightly off guard. Honestly, he didn't believe that Arkham was the best option, but to remain hopeful, and to give others hope he had to lie. As they say, ignorance is bliss, and false hope was at least a type of hope all the same.

"No, I think you can get better. And I can help you, Joker. It just happens that we don't exactly have to be enemies, we just have to get the work done so you can be at least a functioning citizen in society." The Joker nodded silently, before Batman let his arm go. It wasn't a small gesture, it signified that Bruce trusted his greatest enemy, even for a little bit. The Joker wore a surprised face before he turned back around to face Batman, only to meet a stern, but subtly loving gaze. There were no words exchanged between the two of them, because Batman diminished that opportunity by opening the door. And it wasn't in the normal, pushy-shovy way where the Joker got thrown in, his face meeting coldly with the ground, no. 

Batman held the door open for Joker as if they were on a date, Joker the lady and Batman the gentlemen. The Joker looked at Batman, and began to laugh. It wasn't quite a insane laugh, but it could be easily mistaken for one if you first looked at the Joker. But, Batman knew that something funny was on the Joker's mind, so his normally frowning lips tweaked up a little, and asked in a slightly amused voice, "What is it?"

After his laughing fit, the Joker explained to the larger man that if they weren't in the Asylum, they would be on a date. And then, Batman pursued the flirting. "Maybe sometime that would happen," He said this in the deepest voice he could muster, which stained Joker's cheeks with a color that could resemble an aged Red Wine. It contrasted greatly to his skin, he looked like he was from Victorian ages where the ladies would pat themselves down with a lead based paler, and then resume to put rouge on their cheeks. If possible, Bruce wanted to chase that look. 

But, everything revolved around getting Joker through that door willingly. 

They both exchanged sad smiles, longing glances, their smiles differing, but still there nonetheless. Bruce's was a ghost of a smile, one that was toothless, it was covered by a curtain of thin lips, it had to be perfected until it was just right, kind of like his body when he trained around the world. Joker's smile, on the other hand, was completely different. It was proud to be there with big but thinned red lips, showing surprisingly white teeth. They each said their individual goodbyes in their own ways, and Batman shut the door gently as if he lulled Dick to sleep with a story, and he began his journey to sneak out of his room, making sure not to wake the boy. 

And then, Batman began to quietly question himself as he embarked his long journey home in the Batcar, it's engine almost being muted by the soft melody of a 50's jazz song that Bruce thought was pretty and nice, but he didn't care to see what it was. The world seemed to be a blur flashing all around hm, as if he were driving through flames, the different colors presenting themselves in dignified streaks of red and orange and yellow. But in his case, Batman saw streaks of unified greys and blacks, sometimes the flash of a neon sign would blur itself, quickly escaping as if it were never there in the first place. He was trying to confirm in his mind if he really wanted to start a relationship with his greatest rival- He didn't want to be another Harley Quinn, and Batman knew the Joker for enough time for the green haired man to peg out his weaknesses and strengths, Joker knew him as a person. 

And then he thought a simple answer to his original question, in his mind. It was a yes, nothing less and nothing more, and then, Batman forgot about it, or more like shoved those thoughts away for tomorrow morning's training session with Dick.


	32. Chapter Thirty Two: Against a Power, Fate is a Strong Tea

Fate was a very funny thing. Hilarious, maybe, but funny fit the description better. 

And when he meant fate, he didn't mean the outcomes of fate itself, just God's sick sense of humor somehow made it funny. If you have the brain to put your life in retrospect, then maybe, just a sliver of a chance, you will laugh with the big man upstairs. But that rarely happened, close to never, and the person in question would curse God, abandon him with their back facing him, they would rather be walking in hell than see his face again. The Joker thought that those people were just fucking stupid, he would pounce on the chance to meet Robin Williams. But then again, he killed himself. 

So, there's that. 

And it's not like the Joker thought of himself as a saint- He knows what he has done, and he turned his back on God, many, many times before. But, he wasn't a Christian that way, he never was. Even before his wife died, she was a Catholic, but the old Joker, the before Joker, Jack, never went to Church. He never read the Bible. His parents were too damn poor to scrape enough money to buy their own Bible, and Church was too far away, the gas prices were too high for them. They couldn't rub two pennies together. But Jack's wife understood, it's the way he grew up, and one day, his pregnant, lovely wife asked him what person he saw the Lord in. He liked to keep that secret private, he didn't see God in anyone, not even himself, so guess what his understanding wife did. Guess. 

She understood. 

He never saw God's power flow through anyone, before he met Batman. At first, the big guy struck the fear of Jesus into him, it made him see how ruthless, how rigid heaven's rules can be. But when they first started the relationship, he saw the compassionate side of God. When he imagined God before he met Bruce, he didn't see a old man with a stark white beard, he saw a man with two faces. It's not like a man who had two faces and one head, he really just saw two different men, with two different personalities, one would use their left hand for Mercy, the other, right, for Justice. The justice man had blonde hair, fierce, light blue eyes, a masculine jaw with a manly beard rustling from his face. He always looked really angry, and it wasn't a rage type of angry, but it was the disgusted type of angry, the type of angry where he would be looking at pure scum. It was damn near degrading, but the Joker had nothing to be ashamed of, because he really could give a shit. 

The other man had brown hair that flowed down to his back, black eyes and freckles, with a warm, gleaming smile as he smelled of good, sweet oatmeal. It made the Joker feel warm inside, but not the type of warm that Bruce made him feel. When the Joker, only clad in one of Bruce's silk robes, (That were much too big for him. He thought that they were comfy anyways), watching the sunrise alone, he felt cold. But when the big bad Bat came sneaking up behind him, wrapping his bear arms around his skinny waist, he wasn't so cold anymore, and he would always jump at the slight scare his lover gave him. Bruce would always chuckle, the feeling of his chest on the Joker's back made him feel warm, and it was a type of warm he hasn't felt since his wife passed. The Joker thought Harley was hot, but nothing more than that, really. Poor girl. She tried so hard to please him, and he knew it too. 

He was going to have to let her go at some point in time. 

And it was somehow fate that they would be together. It was difficult, the Joker and Bats had a hard situation, the green haired man being the mugger, and Bats, the honest cop. He almost hated the situation they were in, but when he felt those big, rough hands on his pale skin that used to land unforgiving hits on him caress him wth tenderness, with love, those lips that used to spew hurtful phrases whisper loving words, the smaller, meeker green haired man couldn't think about the past any more. It was like those hands washed the grime of his sin off of his being, Bruce's lips kissing those wounds away to cut themselves on another body, another person that Joker didn't really care to know. 

The irony was almost painful, how he couldn't find love again until he met Bruce. It felt like some sappy romance movie that was overrated and shitty, but it was theirs nonetheless. And the Joker knew better than anyone else that you had to deal with the cards that you're given. Some, straight Aces. Others, some ones and threes. And it all mattered on how prettily enough you begged to the strict mother fate. 

When Batsy had a tough day without the Joker, he saw how broken down he was, not just from being the fucking Batman, but just from the stresses of life, like family, the day life, being a rich billionaire that can't avoid the spotlight, and most of all, being a broken man in the first place, breaking himself even more for people he tried his hardest to please, because that was the only way of living he knew. And Joker sometimes saw the corpse left of a man deteriorate right in front of his eyes, and other times, he would be fully revived again only to know his inevitable death. 

It was the body language that gave away if Joker was going to have a good night or a bad one, Batman thought that he was the only one in the entire world that could read body language fluently. He was dead wrong. Usually if he was having a bad night, then he would bury himself in paperwork, his hands would quiver from time to time, his feet would shake up and down until he had to take his hand and press it down on his knee to stop it. The Joker knew that his lover, his life, his Bruce didn't like to give off emotional vibes. He liked to be the strong tough guy that everyone looked up to, but one night, everything was different. It was raining and thunder was croaking out it's merciless battle cry, using it's lightning weapons to mercilessly pound at the Earth. This was the type of weather that the pair absolutely loved.

But that was the night that Dick left. 

Without any explanation, Bruce hugged the smaller man in the middle of the Manor's master bedroom, in front of the slightly curtained moonlight, it just being dim enough to outline their silhouettes, just enough to make the tears flowing from Bruce's face shine when the Joker pulled away. He caught wind of the news easily, villains loved to celebrate at the disposal of the infamous Batman and his Boy Wonder, his son. The green haired man could imagine it vividly- He could see the little crying child in Bruce's face, little threads of the happy Bruce left in his soul, completely frayed, almost snapped, it was so shocking to Joker that he could almost claim being a witness to Bruce's parent's murder, seeing the kid clutching at his father's chest so see if there was any sign of a heartbeat, letting the tears fall with so much ease, as if he were breathing air, his expression in total shock. 

That's what the Joker saw, anyways. 

After the short and curt crying session from Bruce, he apologized profusely before he started to leave the room. Joker didn't chase after him, and he only saw him again once he had a couple of glasses of wine, being softened enough without being drunk. The man could easily hold his drink, over the years he had grown quite an immunity. Bruce crawled in the bed, the Joker immediately crawling up to his side. He was never that clingy before, but damn, Bruce was a warm person. He was a furnace. 

"Do you know why tough guys are so tough?" Joker questioned, and Bruce sighed. He thought that this was going to be another one of the man's insensitive jokes, the ones that jabbed Batsy right through his suit and pierced his heart. Bruce rejected, but the Joker didn't care. 

"Because they have to go through some pretty tough shit to get their status. But if they do it alone, they snap. Trust me, I've tried that before, and look at me." The Joker's voice was barely above a whisper, but he knew that Bruce's ears were keen. Bruce didn't say anything back for awhile, but nothing really was needed to be said. 

"I love you, Jack." Tonight was a night of many firsts. One, Bruce saying 'I love you,' Two, Bruce saying Joker's real name, and three, Bruce crying, for the first time, in years, probably. At first, Jack was really surprised, not as much about Bruce saying the promising three words that everybody adored, but the voices in his head were screaming 'How in the hell did he figure out our name?!' And things along those lines. But, eventually, Jack calmed down in Bruce's warm arms. He figured that the World's Greatest Detective would eventually have to find out sometime, right? 

Yeah, that was it.


	33. Chapter Thirty Three: In the Eye of A Hopeless Storm

Jack remembered when Damian first caught Bruce kissing yours truly. He just stood there shocked, before the anger started to present itself in his raised voice, in his body language. Of course, his father tried to calm him down, but Damian would have none of that. "Father? How could you?!" That was the first thing that Damian said, or yelled, more like. He shook his head for a moment, before looking at Jack, and looking back at his father again. The father that betrayed him. The father that lied. Bruce even tried to chase his son down to bring him back home, Damian was found freezing in the rain, shaking like a dead leaf, but he still needed to run. On the rooftops of Gotham, there were two people. A father and his son, their bond broken. 

Damian just so happened to notice that he was in (Y/N)'s neighborhood. He ran until they were miles away from the house, and then Damian just... Disappeared. He was an assassin, but Bruce was a detective and he figured out pretty quickly where he was going. Bruce called Alfred, and in no time at all the Bat was soaking in a warm bath while drinking Pennyworth's tea. He just needed to calm down, and so did his son. 

His boy was like a carbon copy of him. Stubborn, angry, and vengeful. He was pessimistic and full of rage at the world, and maybe, Bruce would never see his son again. It sure looked like it was the case after a couple of weeks of Damian being gone. His family just thought that Damian was being a stubborn brat again. Bruce one day decided to visit (Y/N)'s house, and before he even had the chance to knock, the door opened with a little girl, about eight years old, and she said "Damian told me everything, sir. No need to worry, though, I've calmed him down." He could identify this little girl as (Y/N) (L/N), because he could feel the familiarity of her speech. She always politely called him sir. 

She opened the door abroad for him, before he stepped into her house, shaking off the rain from his coat before he hanged it onto the proper rack. He dragged his feet on the house mat, and after, he began his journey to his son. The little girl led Bruce down the house's halls, and when he looked at her, he could see why Damian would befriend her, of all people. She walked with such grace, but there was a gentleness in her aura that would keep the nonexistent selfish pride at bay. Grace and kindness were an unlikely pair to find in such a young child, and it was even a lesser chance since she has been through lots of traumas, but somehow, she defeated those odds. And by her victory, she managed to become the caretaker of Damian's heart. 

Bruce was about to open the door before a little hand grasped at his, and he found that (Y/N) stared at him with words in her eyes, saying 'Let me handle this before you see him,' Because, they both knew that all hell would break loose if Bruce just barged in the little girl's room. She went in the room quietly, but she knew as well as Bruce that Damian could hear her breathing, her footsteps loud and clear. But he at least still knew that it was her walking into the room, not Bruce. Not yet. He was sitting on the ledge seat by the window, staring through the fogged glass, into another universe and the only threshold was the clear bay of heated sand. He absent-mindedly put his hand on the glass solely for the crave of cold sensation on his skin, sometimes he was hungry just for the feel of things, and if (Y/N) wasn't there to quench his thirst, to hug him, to accidentally brush her fingers against his, then Damian would have to find a good enough substitute. But nothing was really good enough. 

Bruce noticed, through little gestures and words, little looks, that Damian was head over heals for this little girl, it was a type of love that neither father nor son knew fully, and in a way, Bruce envied his son. Childhood friends were hard to make when you constantly pushed people away, but if you find someone as caring and as gently persistent as (Y/N), then you have a wife. A mother of your children. If you find a friend like (Y/N), then you have a future, for the better, or for the worse. Whether you liked it or not you were stuck with this person like glue. 

"Father has come to collect me, no?" Damian stated without looking in the girl's direction. His tone was slightly dangerous, but his body language was completely sedated. She hummed a yes, before she walked up to Damian, sitting down in between his legs. She hugged him, and there it was, the touch that Damian hungered so badly for. He needed it, so he hugged her back, tightly, as if he would never see her again. His fingers clutched at the fabric on her back, they contracted and let loose over and over again as if he were testing if he were real. If that moment in time was real, if the person he loved so dearly was real as well. When the hug was over and Damian's hunger temporarily satisfied, he opened the door to see his father leaning on the wall beside it. Damian grumbled "Farewell, (Y/N)," and he only closed the door when he heard a goodbye from her. 

The father and son left the house in a deafening silence, but when they got in the car, Bruce said "You love her, don't you?" Damian looked at him with hate, and it wasn't the type of hate where it goes away three seconds later. It was the hate regarding his father's affairs with the Joker. The boy looked out the window again. 

Damian sighed, it was something like a sigh of defeat. 

"Yes father, I do."


	34. Chapter Thirty Four: Trying

Easy mornings were the best. Jack would lay in the strong cage of Bruce's arms, Dick would tend to Barbara's needs, (Along with a kiss of course), and Damian would water his rose, tend to his Mercy and write in his book full of secrets. He had the urge to do something today, and he didn't know what it was. The only thing he knew was it had to revolve around (Y/N). He needed her memory, to see her face, so by the rose, he placed a picture of her in a fitting frame of wood painted black, with little gold swirls outlining the very edge of the frame. The light reflected off of the glass, and he remembered the moment vividly. It was a Sunday morning, and for Christmas Damian got one of his first digital cameras. He felt that the first picture should be of his best friend. 

Her eyes were the thing that got him in the photo. They were staring out of the train window they were on, to the countryside. They were full of peace, little specks of tiredness dancing around her pupils, the light reflecting off her skin, making her look... Ethereal. That was the only way he could describe it, her hairs seemed like they were perfectly in place, not one of them crossing another delicate strand. She was positioned in such a elegant way, people would have thought that she was a young woman instead of just a girl. Her hand beneath her chin, and her other on her lap, her legs crossed and her neck gently twisted. 

The picture was from an angle, Damian was sitting in another seat, focusing the lens at the girl perplexed by the world outside of her, daydreaming about God knows what. Damian never knew what was going through her mind, but he figured that if he could read thoughts like the Martian Manhunter, he would let her have her own thoughts to herself. No good came out of snooping around, and somehow, Damian learned that the easy way. 

There was no other picture like it, the light beams and dust gathering around her made her look like a doll, a peaceful, happy doll. It looked so real that if Damian reached for the picture his hand would get sucked into the frame, and he would be with her again. 

But Damian knew that sadly, that wasn't the way the the world worked. 

He picked the picture up by the frame, and with shaky fingers, he traced the outline of the girl's still face. He hated how it was just a picture; And no, not like, "I wish I had a tuft of her hair," Type of thing. He wasn't that creepy. Well, maybe, but not towards her. He hated how that pretty face of her's didn't react to his touch, look at him with furrowed eyebrows and amused eyes, a smile playing at her lips and showing perfect rows of teeth that he never got the chance to worship with his own. Damian never knew that his best friend was an angel, but he got the jist when she returned to heaven. (Y/N) never knew what Damian was the Devil, but he was already in hell. He just had to let her go. 

He used to believe in God; Angels and all. Because (Y/N) gave him a reason to, proof that heaven and hell were real, just by her heavenly presence. His angel gave him a reason to believe in God, even though he grew up with no religion. He was never even exposed to a religion before he came to the Americas, so that left him with his own scary thoughts, his own mind nulling questions of 'Why are we here?' And 'What's the point of all of this?'. When he met (Y/N), all of those questions in his head just... Vanished. (But now, those questions were back, it's power tenfold). 

And that was when Angel was born, and, as schemed, that's why she was named Angel in the first place, because (Y/N) gave Damian more than love. 

She gave him religion, a reason to live life without the constant obligation to please others than himself, she gave him everything. The voices in his head silenced themselves when she passed by, time almost stopped when he looked into her interstellar eyes. 

"Hey little D, what'cha lookin' at?" Nightwing asked suddenly, in the sill of Damian's apartment window. This scared Damian so much that he dropped the frame, letting the glass shatter into a million pieces, the echo of the break ringing throughout his mind. It was like a single chime in a giant room; A star exploding in the vacuum of space. He didn't know how he got so scared, but he was so focused on the picture of (Y/N) that he didn't even hear Grayson gently unlock the window, and slide it open. 

"Dammit, Grayson!" Damian held his now bleeding hand, tiny shards of glass stuck painfully under his skin, the sensation of burning only getting worse as his hand continually twitched. With a silent 'Oh my God," from Grayson, the older man rushed his younger brother to the kitchen sink, grabbing a pair of tweezers and bandages hastily grabbed from the first aid kit in his bathroom. The procedure was painful, but Damian felt worse. 

Dick cleaned up the glass shards off of the floor, and when he looked back up, his face met with a crow, giving him the same scare that he gave Damian, but this time, he didn't spill the glass shards out of the dust pan. His words were incoherent, and his body language the same, but Damian explained without looking up, "She is my pet, Grayson. Her name is Mercy, and no, she cannot fly. She is crippled." Damian was putting bandages on his own hand, but he could hear that Grayson was getting accustomed to the small, but growing crow, at an alarming rate. "You tell no one, understand? You may be my brother, but I still know how to kill." Then he heard Grayson freeze, before he muttered a 'Okay, alright,' 

"What's this rose all about? I never knew that you liked plants..." Grayson questioned this more to himself that Damian, but he was still hoping for an answer. 

"The rose doesn't concern you. Like Mercy, I nursed it back to health one day, and that is all you need to know." Damian spoke defensively. After that, Damian looked up to see that his brother wasn't interested in the crow, or the rose anymore. He was interested in the picture. "I can see why you had a UBER big crush on her, Dami. She was really pretty. Five... years now?"

"Yes."

"Care to explain anything? Need a shoulder to cry on?"

"Definitely not."

"You are just like your damn father!"

Damian chuckled at Dick's raised voice, if it was meant to scare him, then it wasn't working. The younger brother was almost certain that there was a sarcastic undertone to be found if you dug deep enough, if you read in between the lines. Damian's smile instantly died out, the sarcastic look in his eyes turned into a dead glare in less than a millisecond. He held his hand up, and rolled in between his fingers was a microphone that was supposed to be hidden underneath the crevice of the kitchen island. "Now, Grayson, you are going to leave, and you are going to tell the family to stop trying to spike my damn house!" And in an instant, Damian was in Dick's face, his threat seeming realer than the air he was breathing at that moment. "Or, I will cut out your tongue, and I will make you write it in your own blood on the Manor's walls!" 

After that, Grayson was gone. His face pale and his skin sweaty, his eyes on the utter verge of tears. It was almost too ironic, if Dick's face were a little more masculine, his hair shorter and his eyes a sharper shape, then Dick would be as heartbroken as Damian. How could Damian be so Bipolar? To him? The one that was so close to him in the beginning, but now, it seemed like they were islands away, all the bridges burned by Damian's matches. And it wasn't just the bridges between him and Damian, but everyone else, too. The only bride he didn't burn was one that was connected to his dead best friend. 

After that, Dick ran back to Bludhaven like he never did before, only being the messenger of Damian's hasty threat.


	35. Chapter Thirty Five: Is it Real, or am I Going Mad?

Dreams are the worst to Damian. He can't tell if reality is fake, and if a dream is reality, and he doesn't like being baffled by his own head. He likes to be in control, but he knows that for the past five years, he had no choice if he were in control over anything anymore, and it was infuriating. Not at (Y/N), of course, but everything else made him just plain angry. 

His family was really nosy. And he liked privacy. Like how fire and water never mixed, it was like a forest blaze and liquid nitrogen. Two complete extremes against each other, in the fight of their life, and the glory to win. Since the last time he talked to Grayson, he found five more microphones in his apartment, and now he was seriously considering to move out of Gotham for good, somewhere where his family couldn't find him, somewhere where they'd learn their lesson. But he knew the answer immediately when he suggested the idea to his bitch of a therapist: 'No. You have too many ties here, and separating yourself from them would only make your...Condition worse.' Fuck her. He knows that she doesn't want to help him, she has talked to other therapists behind his back and said that "Just because he's the bastard of Bruce Wayne doesn't mean I have to help him!"

Nevertheless, he was going to her again today. His family is making him and it is one of those things where it just takes your energy and doesn't give any back, in the long run. "So, Damian, how do you feel?" 

"I don't really feel anything, to be honest," That wasn't too hard. 

"What emotion do you feel the most when you aren't... Numb, per say," That question took Damian a little time to answer. He hated how she talked to him, how she tried to drag everything out of him, whether he liked it or not. Damian hated how he had to search inside himself, even when he mapped everything out. She tore that map apart and made him put the pieces back together, like a disappointed artist in it's servant, tearing up the mural it just made, and had the little child stitch it back together again. It was like being drowned in water, only to have a couple of seconds of air again before the hand grasping at your hair made your head go under again, leaving your lungs to burn and the air in your throat slip out. 

"I'd say, for the past few weeks, angry. Otherwise, just... Tired. Really, really tired."

She muttered to herself as she wrote his symptoms and behaviours on a giant legal yellow notepad, her pen new and shiny, but cheap nonetheless. It was made of plastic and the ink sometimes ran out, he could tell by her shaking the pen up and down, shaking it violently as if she wanted to kill a baby. Who knew, Damian thought, maybe she did kill a baby before. Maybe she was the insane one. 

After some other boring questions that put Damian, surprisingly, in so much turmoil, Damian left the office, to meet the bustling life of the city, in a cage of towering buildings. But the people didn't care that they were in capture, because like zoo animals, they get used to it. The animals aren't deprived of joy, but then again, in the wild, they never knew joy in the first place. The freedom they felt was terrifying. It was a type of freedom that humans haven't experienced in a very long time. Damian went to his house, cracked open a bottle of whisky that he didn't care to know the label, and he drank. And Jesus, could he lick the bottle dry. 

Stressful days like this, Damian would get a little tipsy. Some blush would burn itself on his cheek, and if a person was wondering why a twenty year old man could handle a whole bottle of whiskey like a fifty year old man, then he would simply tell the person that it was in his genetics. His father could take a drink, and it wasn't like he drank a bottle a day. Damian knew self restraint, engraved into him by the discipline of his mother, Talia, training sessions with Bruce, (The occasional wet dream, all thanks to puberty), and the teachings not to kill from his brother Grayson. If Damian was taught, then he would act on those teachings. 

Even if it came in the form of a bottle, and restraining to open it. 

He fell asleep on his couch, something that was forming into a habit. Yes, he had self restraint, but habits he didn't bother to kill wasn't one of his biggest priorities. Whisky helped him remember his dreams, which was one of the things he hated, if the reader dearest cared to pay attention to the beginning of the chapter. He had many dreams without the whisky, but the alcohol only made said dream seem... Realer. More vivid, more emotional, more everything. Like a director taking charge of a shitty film and making it a highly proclaimed masterpiece. Evidently, he dreamt about (Y/N). He saw this action not only as a pastime, but as an escape. 

And boy, was he going down the damn rabbit hole.

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Old cartoons were the best. No political agenda underlined in the plot, no shitty characters. Just some good old adventure for your kids to watch around the T.V before your Sunday dinner. After that, you go to Church in your suburban neighbourhood and sing hymns before your children got too tired. But it wasn't exactly the nineteen forties anymore. Nevertheless, (Y/N) and Damian still liked to watch these programs whenever they got too tired of the re-runs. Old cartoon marathons were the best. 

(Y/N) sang along with the Popeye the Sailor Man intro song, Damian hummed the harmony in the background. He made sure that it was quiet enough so she wouldn't hear it, so she wouldn't feel it when she snuggled up to his muscular torso. He thought that her singing was pretty, he'd like to hear it with a beat on a stage, but he knew that he shouldn't push her that hard, into something that she probably wouldn't want to do. Earth didn't need another Amy Winehouse. The more Damian thought about it, the more he disagreed with the notion of making his best friend a music star. He wanted to keep her voice all to himself. Damian was greedy, but in a sweet sort of way where you want to say "Aww," and hug him. Of course, he probably would punch you in the throat if you openly stated your astonishment at his soft side, and he'd throw you on the ground even if you did as much as sling an arm around his shoulders. To strangers, not (Y/N). He let her do all of those things, with hesitance, of course, he still had trust issues to get over. He was ten. She was nine. They were both some cute ass kids, though. He could give the universe that victory. 

The night was just like that, watching Popeye the Sailor Man. Eventually, though, the world turned enough so the clock said 2:00. (Y/N) was asleep on his shoulder, her head perfectly fitted for the crook of his neck. They were like puzzle pieces. Damian picked up the remote, and he turned off the T.V. The next thing he did was pick up (Y/N) in a bridal form, and take her to his bedroom so she could sleep on his bed. Paranoid that they would wake up in a embarrassing pose, Damian took to the floor with only a single pillow and a thin blanket. This was how he was used to sleeping when he was in the League of Assassins, on the cold ground, on his back with fingers laced in a knot on his stomach. He looked more like a corpse than a sleeping person. Damian wouldn't be surprised if he woke up to the feeling of fingers pressing on his neck and looking for a pulse. It's happened before. He broke his brother's arm. Drake's, surprisingly, but Damian didn't regret it on the inside. He despised of Tim, even to the present day. 

He despises of everything, to this present day.


	36. Chapter Thirty Six: Tides of Forgetfulness and Memory, Tides of Time

Damian woke up the next day with a headache. It wasn't one of his worst, but it was still plenty painful. He still had an empty whisky bottle in his hand, and he looked at his clock. He was up at five, and he needed to go to work at seven. Two hours to get in a shower, sober up and dress himself, covering his most recent cuts. When he was eighteen he thought that it was still a foolish thing to do, but the dopamine in his brain pounced on any chance of a high. He got addicted to cutting, and he kind of grew accustomed to it. Not like death, no. He didn't love cutting himself like a fifteen year old with daddy issues, but he now saw it as a necessity to calm himself down after a stressful night. 

He couldn't feel pain in his right arm anymore, and he was starting to go numb in his left. He didn't know if it were from the slight but gradually building blood loss, or if it were his nerves being spliced in half so many times that they died. He always kept rubbing alcohol and bandages beside his soap dispenser, on the left of his sink, where the hot water tap was. On the right, a holder for his toothbrush and his tooth paste. He had the rest of his needs in his drawers. 

There was a sudden rush, hands on his arms, gripping his tightly, and when he looked up, he saw a blur of messy black hair, a mop that only could belong to Dick Grayson. Damian could tell that his older brother was yelling at him by his frantic movements, from the jerking of his head all the way down to the bits of pressure from his fingers, right on Damian's wrists, making them bleed. Not burn, not feel any pain, but they bled. 

"Are you even listening to me?!" Those were the first words that actually got through Damian's head. He shook his head no drowsily, and then, he felt like he was being dragged to his alcohol smelling couch. Dick muttered something about beer, and how it's illegal for Damian to drink any. But that was to himself, Damian supposed. Damian specifically remembered that Grayson stated that he had his first beer at the age of sixteen, so he guessed that goody two shoes wasn't so innocent. He felt a suture poke in his skin, Dick stitched up the cuts that were too deep for his own liking, but too shallow to cut a vein. They were all sideways too, so Damian had really nothing to worry about. 

As Joji once stated, "Remember kids, sideways for attention, longways for results,"

Damian didn't exactly agree with that statement. Someday, he was going to go longways, deep enough to kill him slowly. But that wasn't today. He wanted to be safe, but he also wanted relief. Sometime, the tensions of life got too stressful for him. "It's been five years, Damian. I think that you have to move on, you know, maybe get a girlfriend or something like that." That set Damian on fire, it made him irate in such a way where he could only form a few coherent sentences. Instead, he just fought Dick like hell. Since Damian had the bigger stature from a long shot, he won. 

"Bruce never got over his parents, and do you judge him for leaving roses at their graves?! I don't question you when talk about a fucking circus in town! Do I say to Barbara, 'Hey, I know you got your back broken by Bane, but do you mind walking?!'" By that time, Grayson was drowsily looking up at Damian, with broken teeth, a black eye and a bloody nose. Damian decided that he had done enough, and after that, he threw Grayson out the door. Damian muttered a few things to himself after he slammed the door shut, and little did he know that his family was listening in on every word he was saying. Even if he did know, he couldn't care less about it. 

In front of the Batcomputer, the family stood there, faces frozen with shock and eyes as wide as the sky itself. After, they waited for Dick to come in the cave, bruised, broken and hurt. Damian had a sharp point, they learned that night. If no one else in his family moved on from their inner turmoils, so why should he? Even if he did, he'd be viewed as a lesser part of the family. But the words Damian spat still hurt them, Barbara couldn't walk. Bruce couldn't forget, and the Circus Dick held so dearly to his heart was beginning to be more of a curse than a blessing. 

Each one of them slowly dispersed, they canceled all appointments with the therapist Damian was seeing. Damian was too much of a lost cause to see that therapist, and they were now convinced that she wasn't helping at all. They finally, after five long years, got the message to leave him alone, and to go fuck themselves. Damian, however, went to work like nothing ever happened. The fight only took thirty minutes of his time, and it left his house in shambles, but that was a concern for another time, after work. 

After he fought crime, he went to bed. His dreams began to haunt him in a continuous cycle of heartache.

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He was standing on a cliff. It was at a bay, so there were waves pounding themselves mercilessly against the rocky shoreline, and they dissipated, they died only to repeat that cycle once again. The sight reminded Damian of something familiar, even though he's never been in that spot before. It was pretty, he could give his subconscious that. It also smelt clean, in Gotham you could see the dirt and oil in the air. It was disgusting. 

He sat down, his muscles giving slight tension to the sudden movement, and a whine unexpectedly escaped his throat. But, the risk was worth the reward, he let his feet dangle over the cliff's edge, his feet were sometimes gently sprayed by the ambitious waves that strive to go higher. He noticed that he was in a different outfit, one that was abnormal from the regular suit and tie. He had a black shirt on, and jeans. No shoes. Everything was abnormal and different and abstract but at the same time, everything was familiar. It was starting to piss Damian off, because he couldn't pinpoint his thoughts, but right as he was going to get up and walk away, he felt a hand on his shoulder. There was no other hand like it. Suddenly, everything clicked in his mind, the reason why everything felt like home:

It was (Y/N). 

When he got up, he hugged her so tightly. He squeezed her so tightly to himself that she was almost unable to feel the soft sobs erupting from his chest. Not minding the immense pressure his arms could barely give her, she hugged back. 

"Damian, everything's better now."

He looked at her with immense curiosity when they parted, his arms still grasping hers and their bodies at a close proximity. "What happened? What's better? Did anyone hurt you?" By that time Damian's tone was protective, in a loving way. And she softly squeezed his wrists again, she explained that she was in hell for five years. People did hurt her, but she said that she was in heaven. That she was being taken care of by the hands of God. In his dream, it gave him relief, but the asleep part of him knew that he was only dreaming. After that, they talked and they laughed, but Damian remembered none of that when he actually woke up, the harsh glare of the sun making his pupils bake like they were in hell. 

But he did remember one thing- He didn't remember anything else. (Y/N) had a outfit of a white t-shirt, ripped jeans, and converse. They were both in casual clothes, but they slow danced together, the maturity of her body pressed against his should have been a completely alien feeling to him, but somehow, it was as if he had the time to map out every inch of her eighteen year old skin. Like how they would be a couple instead of friends, cuddling and shamelessly being at such a close proximity as if it were casual. 

It would be as if (Y/N) hadn't died.

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The girl walked up to the dealer, he looked stereotypical. Dark hoodie, dark jeans, but she could easily tell that he was still a college student, and if he got caught, then his whole life would be thrown away due to his own foolish actions. He knew that, but he still sold drugs. She found him on the internet, Craigslist, if she could recall correctly. His hands shook, his voice was scratchy and cracked, his eyes darted around side to side momentarily before locking on her when they were talking. Once or twice he'd look up if he would be spotted by the Dark Knight himself. 

Never can be too careful. 

He had a dry bloody nose, a scruffy beard, and a split lip. He got in a fight. She, however, looked pristine. Her strawberry dyed hair curled to perfection, the freckles on her face dotting constellations on the map of her skin. She wore a fashionable trench coat, her eye makeup smoky. No one would ever suspect her hiding many different types of drugs in her extra pockets. Marijuana, Ecstasy, Cocaine, and Heroin were the main ones. Some Inhalants, others were acids stuck in small glass vials, ones that a scientist would use. She were mixed, others, purebred. 

"So, you got that Cherry Meth?" She asked. He nodded. Well, more like craned his neck up and down until he looked like a retarded T-Rex.


	37. Chapter Thirty Seven: Love for the Morbid

To Damian's displeasure, Mercy didn't grow crippled. If he said it out loud he knew that it would sound wrong, but if a person was smart enough to look deeper into the context of those words, then they would be able to understand. But no one other than his father was smart enough to wrap his head around his son's logic, and anyone else was dead. Namely (Y/N). And a part of him, and somehow a part of (Y/N)'s soul was put into that crow. Mercy had (Y/N)'s eyes, Damian's square jaw, things like that made the man wonder. It could just be a coincidence, but on the other hand, some other force could be playing the strings. He wasn't some tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but they were thoughts to think that occupied his blank mind, once in awhile when things got slow.

She started to fly around his house when he knew that he had to let her go. The first time he saw her fly, he didn't crumble apart and sob on the floor, but silent tears streamed down his face, as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom, Mercy stopped flying. She stared at him with (Y/N)'s eyes that can pierce his very soul in his dreams, and then she hopped over to his foot, flew to his shoulder and nuzzled his head. He didn't stop crying, but those big singular tears became skinny rivers and he smiled a bit as he pet his crow. 

He took the next couple of days off from both of his jobs, one as a Robin. He fed his crow whenever she wanted to be fed, she bathed her whenever she wanted to be bathed, and he pet her all along the way. She was confused why he was treating her like royalty, grooming her, giving her more praise than she would ever wish for, but one day, he brought back a bag of bird seed. He carried it with shame, with burden. He opened the window, and Mercy grew even more confused. 

Then, she got it. She had to go. 

Mercy then got why he was crying, why everything was as it seemed. It was a inevitable fact that she had to go. She would have to go and never ever come back, because if she visited her freedom would only bring the both of them more pain in their hearts. He opened the bag, he threw some bird seed out of the window and Mercy raced after it. She didn't need to look back to know that the door was closed shut, forever. So, they went their separate ways, leaving Mercy an isolated crow and Damian a bitter man. She still flew around his building, and sometimes Damian caught a glimpse of her, but as she got accepted into her crow society, she didn't come alone. She joined a Murder. It's like a parent seeing their little child make friends for the first time, it made them so overjoyed that their own heart broke in the process. 

He constantly tried to remind himself that it was for the better, and Mercy's happiness was his happiness, but he couldn't help if he were at least a little selfish. Losing your only piece of sanity left was a sad thing to occur. He knew that his sanity left with his crow because (Y/N) started to visit him in his dreams. He wasn't complaining, seeing her face was a blessing in and of itself, but in a dream... Well, it was peculiar to say the least. It was slightly wrong, It was slightly twisted.

It was not supposed to happen. 

But she still visited his dreams, if it were actually her messages from heaven or his own mind trying to comfort him, he would never know. But he decided to believe in them, because if he didn't, what would he have to believe in? A rose? A crow that he would never see again? He needed his delusion, his heartache, sadly, to survive. If he didn't, then his life would be rendered useless by society, by his family. He would be a pariah. To see (Y/N)'s matured face, to see her frame fit delicately into her silk gowns or blue jeans made him more determined to die young. Damian knew that it should have been the opposite that the effect on him was not normal in the slightest. Someone who has lost a loved one will say that they feel motivated to move on, to live in their memory, but Damian personally didn't want it to be that way. 

He saw that if you lived longer, you were just putting more space in between you and the love that you lost. 

He loved art, and he loved to take photos. So, Damian would always sneak pictures of (Y/N) in cass, she was always so camera shy. He loved the concentrated look on her face, her eyes peering out into the sea of knowledge and the sky of the unknown, Damian could just imagine her as a pirate sailing the seven seas, fighting underwater monsters in the Bermuda Triangle, all the while Damian was loyally at her side. He smiled at thoughts like those, they were some of the happier things that he could actually savour. No melancholic memories written in a book, no shrinks telling him what to do and what not to do, no deep obligations from the flaky family. Daydreaming was the purest thing Damian could do, he still had old snapshots of the two in Halloween costumes together. 

They would always do something related to each other on Halloween, one time Damian was Wybie and (Y/N) was Coraline. Another time, Damian was Bert and (Y/N) was Mary Poppins. Everyone thought that they were a couple, and when someone asked, Damian would stare at them long enough to make them squirm under his gaze, and he would growl, "No,". The girl would just blush, look down, and pretend that the question was never asked. After that, Damian and his best friend would silently sneak out of the room, only to hand out at their arch above their school that looked like a church, more than anything. They would laugh, and they would dance, and they would watch videos together on their phones and yell angrily at the screen.

Yeah, Damian could really get the hang of daydreaming. It's distraction would suffice as a weak, but handy shield against society.


	38. Chapter Thirty Eight: Playing a Waltz for the Enemy

Across the street, there she was. Mackenzie. Not (Y/N), to Damian's great displeasure, it was the person who was two years older than him, just wanting to have sex with him so she could have bragging rights. It was hard to be the blood son of Bruce Wayne, being famous and still, a kid made it hard to find genuine friends. But against all odds, as if God willed it, (Y/N) ascended from heaven to be his guide. To be his one true love, the one who would also destroy him. Avoiding Mackenzie was the top priority, at any cost, Damian would have to walk the other way. The woman did drugs, she drank constantly, her body littered with the sin of lust. And she liked pink. Damian wanted to vomit when she dragged him to her house, even the perfume she wore reminded him of the color pink. He didn't like thinking of those memories. 

Suddenly he got a buzz from his back pocket, and he held up his phone, reading a text on the screen. It was from Barbara, saying that Damian should just give Mackenzie a chance. It made him livid, the audacity of his family was sometimes too overwhelming, even for the notoriously stoic Damian Wayne. To keep his image up, he had to see her whether he liked it or not. 

Since when did he ever care about his image?

But, to avoid the hell his family would give him, he went to the end of the crosswalk. And he pressed the crossing button, just like the other twenty-seven people waiting with him to cross the street. The little orange hand turned into a walking person emitting a pale white light, and each step he took he made sure to land inside the two white lines of the crosswalk itself. Some people almost ran him over, because they didn't respect the fact that they were breaking the law, they could have possibly ran over a quite relevant celebrity, (Which would have landed them in a world of hurt), and, in general, they were injuring another human being, to the expense of said person for their own values: Time, and money. Damian just gave them a short but curt blank stare and flipped them off with a calm arm. 

Each step he took made his gut churn worse. He wondered what would happen to him if he actually started to date Mackenzie, probably something unfathomable to the human mind, Damian concluded. But, instead of facing the complete, unhinged wrath of his family, he thought that a beer couldn't hurt him. Barbara already set up a time and a place for him, she had the best intention of not stressing him too much, but the effect was the complete opposite. 

"Damian, Damian! Over here, Dami!" His blood boiled at Mackenzie's words. Only (Y/N) had the permission to call him fucking Dami, and even then, those moments were few and far apart. It was when she was out of breath or injured, or when she was in a bodily state where she couldn't possibly breathe out his full name. He let her do that, with other people he slapped them, but he was in no position to do that. And, partly, it was also the way Mackenzie said Damian's forbidden nickname. She prolonged the "A," and said "D," like a "Duh,". If you heard that pronunciation with the mix of her high pitched voice, you would want to put a barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. 

Damian replied with a "Hey, Mackenzie," It sounded heartfelt and gentle, but that was all due to Damian's impeccable acting. He learned the art of fake smiles and happy tones by the time he was eight, using them on whomever he pleased, all except (Y/N). She was the one who saw right through his soul, and when she did, she would ask what was wrong, and if he explained anything tough to say, she would give him a hug regardless of the fact whether he wanted it or not. Mackenzie gave Damian a hug, and he tried his best not to have a heart attack. Not because he loved her, but it was the hate that filled his heart to the very brim, he either wanted to have that heart attack, or he wanted a knife to stab Mackenzie with. To be honest, the walk to the bar was kind of a blur, but Damian tried to be as pleasant as possible. Why not? He had nothing else to live for. 

They got in the pub, it was one that Damian went to before. They had good drinks, and since he didn't have the luxury of tasting his father' aged wine, he didn't think that the drinks they served tasted like piss. If you have higher highs, that also means you would have lower lows. Mackenzie took a seat, and Damian sat beside her. He was the one that ordered a normal beer; Mackenzie ordered something expensive that Damian could easily afford. The bartender looked at Damian with worry; He didn't look like someone who could pay that type of money, but Damian silently nodded at the buff, bald man, signaling to him that everything was fine. 

The date itself was a solemn one, full of questions and answers that held actual meaning. It started with Mackenzie saying "What did she have, that I didn't?" Damian sighed after a couple seconds after Mackenzie inquired about the past. He shook his head, took a sip of his beer, and set it down with a 'Thunk!' It wasn't too loud, but it was still noticeable, and it only made the pair's situation tenser. 

"You're a nice woman, Mackenzie. But, you're two years older than me, and I guess she was just early to the party." She nodded her head. 

"She was loveable, that's for sure. I couldn't stay mad at her." Damian responded with a curt 'Yeah,' He sifted a hand through his black hair, and sighed again, while his hands were at work, by rolling his beer bottle around on its bottom edges. Damian excused himself while he went to the bathroom, and while no one was looking, Mackenzie slipped a drug into Damian's drink. Well, she ordered another one for him. If she slipped the amount she planned to slip in his below half empty drink, then he would definitely be able to taste it. 

After only about thirty minutes, Damian was swaying in his chair, and Mackenzie promptly escorted Damian out of the pub and into her car. She knew what she was doing, she knew that she would probably be locked up in jail for a very, very long time, (Only because Damian was a celebrity. If it were any other man, the judging system would have laughed him off and would order him to be a functioning citizen in society, even when the cogs in his head were bent), but the heat of the moment drew her to make decisions that she would never regret. 

Damian leaned on her, while the two were walking up to Mackenzie's apartment. After that, she pushed him on her bed and started to take her clothes off. She wanted to bear Damian's child. Mackenzie knew that Damian wouldn't be able to take responsibility, but there were tons of single mothers in society and she could fit in with the rest, settle down in a one bedroom apartment, and become a man hating bitch like the rest of them. You can tell that she thought through this for years. She was done taking off her clothes with shaky fingers and nimble hands after a little while. 

Now, she only had to start with Damian.


	39. Chapter Thirty Nine: Bleeding from the Other's Bullet

Damian started to rouse from his drugged haze, but it was a slow process. His mind wasn't that sharp any more, just like how his body was starting to wither. He didn't fall asleep, but he was in a state where he is in between the two opposites, he was the grey in between the black and the white. He knew that he was fully waking up when he felt sharp, powerful waves of pleasure go through his body. This feeling was alien to him, he kept his virginity in check while he summoned the courage to romance (Y/N), but now that she's dead he didn't care about women or men in the first place. At first, he thought it was (Y/N), he would expect (S/C) skin, the color of her eyes reflecting in the light, staring into his green eyes, her hair bouncing up and down, just like the rest of her body.

But when Damian's eyes fully focused, he found strawberry blonde hair, (That is dyed), tan skin and freckles. Lots of freckles. "N-no, sto..." Damian couldn't say any more after that, because he unwillingly released his seed into her. He couldn't move, he was too exhausted, he couldn't speak, and even for a small moment his breathing was unstable. This was his first time, Damian didn't know what was happening, his world was spinning and burning, going white to black and black to white over and over. When Damian first heard something clearly, it was some fluid bubbling up in a medical drip. 

"Mr. Wayne, when your son disappeared at five forty yesterday evening, he was drugged, and most likely raped. We haven't done a physical inspection yet, but we found drugs in his system that are usually used for date rapes. This might not be good for his mental health." Damian heard his father sigh, he could hear his hands rubbing against his face in a stressed manor, but there were only two words that Damian could put together when the doctor broke it down to Bruce. Rape, and drugs. His subconscious could easily put those two words together, but it took some time for the thought to sink in his mind. 

The doctor continued, "Mr. Wayne, you have to realise that this is a very rare case, but with your status, the person who raped him will be put behind bars. You are lucky that you have so much money, a man who is raped would most likely be brushed off otherwise." Bruce simply responded with a 'I know, I know.' Damian, however, started to move. Time seemed to freeze for Bruce, his son was raped, and now, he was only just starting to rouse from his deep slumber. 

"Damian," Bruce whispered his son's name to himself, and for the first time, in probably years, he felt tears sting his eyes. They didn't overflow and stream down his cheeks, but the feeling, the notion of him crying was something very alien to him, as well as his family. Maybe it was his parental instinct to cry; It was just a rational theory to calm him down. Surely it was that, the fatherly instinct that if he couldn't help his only blood son, then he wouldn't be able to help himself. 

Word spreads quickly throughout the family. Soon, everyone was in the room, and Damian went back to the eternal depths of slumber. Barbara held Damian's hand and sobbed, everyone slowly started to look at her with curiosity. Dami and Babs were never that close, they respected each other, but they never held that mutual bond that brothers and sisters should normally have. Barbara knew that she needed to fess up, and yes, her family would resent her, but she thought that she deserved every feeling of hate she got. 

"I-I made Damian d-date Mackenzie," That's all she needed to say for the family to understand. Everyone didn't give her any grief physically or mentally, but the air everyone breathed in changed dramatically, the aura was disappointing. 

When Damian didn't wake up, everyone except Barbara was forced to leave. She stayed in a Chapel. Once the hospital opened up again, she wheeled herself through the long corridors, admiring the morning. She always loved when things were just starting up, when people were going to their jobs, when everything was slightly silent, the occasional sweep of a broom the only thing breaking the glass roof of deafness. But with the events that transpired in only the last ten hours, her admiration for the mornings she held so closely to her heart did little to calm her nerves. 

When she came back, she was surprised to find that Damian was awake and looking out the room's window, she could tell that his eyes were lost. He was deep in thought, but Barbara said, "D-Damian, I am so, so sor-"

"It's fine, Barbara. You didn't know."

She looked at Damian with confusion. Barbara never expected Damian to react so well to the situation, definitely one like this. But Babs couldn't help but feel bad, if she didn't she would be a monster. But the forgiveness of Damian's words did lift some weight off of her shoulders. In fact, Barbara spent the whole evening talking and chatting with Damian, until she said, "Do you have a picture of (Y/N)?" Damian nodded with a thin lipped smile and pointed to his duffel bag, and she wheeled herself over and inspected it. 

She smiled to herself, Damian had this bag ever since he was ten. It was something subtle, but she always noticed that it was there when Damian was around, and not she knew why. With outstretched arms and gentle hands, she took a hold of the zipper of the bag and pulled it sideways until it was partially opened. That's all she needed for her hands to spread the cloth out so the zipper could unzip itself. There were mostly clothes, a journal Barbara knew not to read, and tucked neatly in one of the inner pockets, was a picture of (Y/N), the girl that didn't smell like roses. 

It was the same picture that was framed, Damian just needed to find the right frame again, since the last one shattered. The picture was slightly bent, warped, but it was never torn or discolored due to a liquid getting spilled on in. Damian took great care of this photo, Barbara concluded, and so would she. The red haired woman smiled to herself, she could easily see why Damian loved this girl. She was pretty, and Barbara understood that (Y/N) was also a friend, too. And with Damian being, well, Damian, Barb thought that his little brother was extremely lucky to have her on this Earth while he did. 

And she also acknowledged that it was their family's misfortune to lose a loved one, at the most unexpected time.


	40. Chapter Forty: Dreaming

"I am too old for lullabies, (Y/N)! I am nearly twelve, and I am just sick, that's all." After Damian said his peace, he coughed for a long time, she could hear the rattling in his chest. She shook her head in disappointment after he coughed, he was nearly asleep anyways and it would just be better to leave his room. But as she was just twisting the doorknob and opening the door, he had realized his mistake. He wanted to sleep so badly, and every method already failed him, so, he thought, why not give this a chance? Seeing his best friend willingly sing for him was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"Wait, (Y/N). I do want to hear that lullabye." Damian said gently, if he said anything that required more air in his lungs he would cough instead of speak. She turned her head and smiled enthusiastically, but she made sure that it wasn't a big smile, just a tug at her lips, or else Damian would scoff and change his mind. She sat down on the bed, right by Damian, if it were anyone else they would be too close for comfort but she was a special case. 

"Lu lu lu I'll take you dreaming, though the rainy night,"

Damian closed his eyes, keeping them open would just be awkward. Well, maybe awkward to him. This thought made Damian question if he overthought things, but that was a question to ask (Y/N) at a later date. She'd probably say, 'A bit, but in a good way,' or something along those lines. If the girl said that, Damian decided that he wouldn't mind too much. Over thinking things meant that you were a little bit smarter, a dash more complex than the rest, maybe even, if he dared to say, more speculative. 

"To a place, behind the raindrops, where the stars are bright," 

Damian felt a tug at his heartstrings. He didn't know why, but he really started to like this song. Maybe it was the innocence of the song, some type of childhood he never had, one he always secretly longed for and this was just a glimpse of it. He couldn't really breathe through his nose that well, he was sick. Damian thought the thing he hated most about a cold or a flu was the stuffy nose that would never go away. He started breathing silently though his mouth. 

"You may not find gold or silver, but a richer prize,"

Damian decided to try and focus on her voice, but he saw that he failed miserably. Due to being Robin, a straight A student, and bilingual, his head was always going on a million miles per hour and it never looked like it was going to stop. So, with that defeat, he wanted to ask (Y/N) how old this song actually was. Then he heard her singing again, and decided not to ask her now, but after if he got the chance. 

"Waits for you, behind the raindrops, if you close your eyes,"

He felt something cold grip his warm hand, and at first he jolted. He looked at a hand encasing his, and he knew immediately to lay back down and relax his tense muscles. It was only (Y/N) caring about him like a good best friend. He felt her hand warm up because of his radiating heat, and sudden paranoia struck his soul. He didn't want to get his best friend sick, that wouldn't be very nice. But it was nice how (Y/N) was taking such great care of him, when she heard that Damian got sick, she brought hot soup, (Family's recipe. Always delicious), and some new books Damian could burn though. And now she was singing for him, Damian didn't want to take too much of her time. Since when did he get so humble and soft for another human being?

"Tonight, tonight, when all the world's asleep, we will tiptoe home with a wonderous star, a star you can always keep," 

Damian felt faded blackness fuzz and burn the edges of his mind, was this actually working? He felt the comfort of that soup still somehow making his body shiver warmly, and he was happy about the fact that when he woke up from his deep slumber, he will be able to read some books that (Y/N) saved up to get him. He would cherish those books forever. 

"And years from now when you go dreaming, when you're very old, though your crown be rich with rubies, diamonds set in gold,"

That was the time when Damian finally went asleep. He wanted to hear more of her singing, it was something nice to hear, something rare, like a gem. Glistening and shiny, it would make a person appreciate the planet Earth and all it's wonders, and that's how it was like for Damian. (Y/N) made him appreciate something, anything, the someone that gave him his best friend. He fell into a dreamless sleep and when he woke up, he was completely better. It was as if (Y/N) blessed him, because of her angelic grace. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damian woke up with a start, his breath hitched in his throat, and after that he tried to take deep breaths. His right hand gripped the sheets underneath him- His hand found that the cloth he felt wasn't the one from his bed. He put and hand on his heart and he found that the clothes in between his hand and his chest was cheap cotton, even he as a middle class worker wouldn't buy those types of clothes. Once he stopped breathing through his mouth, he smelt the distinct sterile, lifeless scent of a hospital, only making his anxiety worse. Sir Darcy was having an absolute field day. But, Damian somehow managed to calm himself down. Once his pupils got used to the strict light in his hospital room, he saw that no one was there. He laid his head back down, he knew that he had nothing to worry about. He was safe, he was just fine and dandy. Dealing with his mental issues would be a pain in the ass, especially after what happened.

But for now, the universe just let Damian Wayne contemplate his existence on a hospital bed, the stars let him relax for once.


	41. Chapter Forty One: Breaking the Ice

When Damian first step foot out of the hospital, he thought that he could take a nice, calming walk home. But to his surprise, he saw a sleek black limo pull up to his side, and the door opened invitingly. He was the only one there, and Damian greeted, "Hey, Alfred." He got no response, just a broken deep breath. And Damian understood from then, the old man needed space, seeing your grandson get raped is something you can't really get over in one day. 

They silently arrived at the manor, and Alfred, as he did probably millions of times before for other people, opened the car door for Damian. But for the first time, when Damian got up, Alfred hugged the younger man. It was probably for the older man's comfort more than his own, and it was probably out of place in the moment, but Damian thought that old people are really, really cute. Alfred quickly composed himself and he opened the grand manor doors, and the black haired son realised that nothing, after years and years of leaving this place since he was sixteen, ever changed.

"Master Bruce, your son's here," Alfred announced, the manor was empty, and lifeless. But somehow, even without the constant decoration of people as Damian saw it in his childhood, all the family meetings and parties alike, when it was quiet it still retained its lithe beauty. In many ways, Damian's former home reminded him of his father, and how it had two faces like the drama of the stage, comedy and tragedy. Both beautiful in their own lovely ways, comedy sweeps you off your feet and takes you somewhere enjoyable, but tragedy is much deeper than that. Tragedy likes to tug at your heartstrings and it corrupts your soul into feeling emotions that you have needed to feel for years. Alfred's decree rang out through the manor, his brittle but somehow still stern voice hitting all of the bookshelves, all of the antique treasures and decorations that were somehow a necessity for a rich man to have. An upper class had to retain their sleek form, after all. 

Alfred fled to the kitchens after that, and Damian saw Bruce walk up to the top of the staircase in the middle of the grand room. When Damian saw his father, even from such a distance, he knew the unique look that his father gave everyone when he wanted them to haul their ass in the Bat Cave. And somehow, the son knew what was going to happen. A light medical examination, a long talk, and maybe a hug. The hug was an uncertainty, but it would be a welcomed surprise. Something pleasant to brighten Damian's mood. The father disappeared before his son followed him, when the younger man got to the room, the clock was still opened for him. He found this as a surprise, his father keeping open the clock for him never happened, Bruce was too paranoid to do something like that. Damian decided that Bruce needed some rest, until a conflicting thought came in his mind that maybe, his father didn't want to give him any more trouble by opening the tricky hidden door. But he made sure to close it behind him.

It was a little bit troubling, going down the cave's jagged steps for Damian. His knees sometimes buckled, his toes sometimes curled up without his permission, he just figured that it was another instinct in his body to comfort him. Once, when he was having a panic attack, (If he had tried to remember exactly what for, then he wouldn't be able to tell the person asking. The only thing he knew was it had something to do with Talia), his father told him that his crying, his twitching and uncontrollable shaking was all a part of his body's plan to calm down. It slightly helped, but when he visited (Y/N) that night, when he was still slightly shaking, her hugs felt much better. It made him feel some special feeling in his chest, other than his love for her it made him feel loved, so when he first felt that feeling when they were seven, when they first met, he never wanted it to end. 

Jason once told Damian when he was still young that love was one of the worst drugs you could take that was out there, because, yes, it was amazing when you had a good flow of it coursing throughout your body, your soul, but when that flow was cut off you can't live the same ever again. Damian didn't know what that meant until his best friend died. He was soulless when (Y/N) passed, and he was wrong, when he stated throughout his life that when she was buried, she clutched his heart in her hands. When she was buried, she clutched his everything in her hands, his love, his soul, his heart, his life, the memories he couldn't keep, the feelings he would never forget, those types of feelings he would await to feel again for an eternity. 

He sat on one of the medical tables, knowing what his father would do. After a slight medical checkup to see if the drugs were still affecting Damian, Bruce ran a hand through his unkempt hair and sighed. "You know how I work Damian, I assess situations and I try to help people, I try to help my family based off of my own experience. And this... This is so foreign to me, and I just want to say, for my absence," Bruce now looked his son in the eye, his own filled with sadness and inner turmoil and confusion. "I am sorry." Bruce's voices was slightly broken and barely above a whisper, but Damian knew why he was saying sorry. He was saying sorry for all of those times he majorly fucked his son, and as a parent, he could never go back. Bruce never expected this, this moment in time, or even the words his stubborn, forever grieving son would say next. 

"I forgive you, father."


	42. Chapter Forty Two: Melting

Damian couldn't help but shake uncontrollably when he first got to his house, he was off his meds for a long time now and his body, along with his mind, can't seem to handle any sort of self freedoms or liberties anymore, now since the systems in which he was taught to abide doped him up on the newest pill shaped ingredient. 

PTSD. PTSD was the first thing that came in full force when he set his keys down on his designated spot. Even the familiar jingle of his plastic car keys against his metal house keys seemed familiar to the echo of the dog tags he kept close to his heart. Suddenly, he panicked. What if Mackenzie took his dog tags away from him? Damian wouldn't be able to live with himself. She could have easily taken them, she could have looked at the last name and would have connected the dots with (Y/N)'s adopted heritage, and he would have lost them forever. But, that wasn't the case, and when he held a hand tightly to his chest, he felt metal beads and tiny steel plates between him and his heart. And quickly after that, his composure decreased from slightly abnormal to a sobbing mess on the dirty kitchen floor, Damian was holding his dog tags so tightly in his hands as if he were a priest and he were confessing his sins to the big man upstairs. 

The next thing was his anxiety. He couldn't control any part of his shaking body, his mental disorders seemed to be making the decisions for him. The schizophrenia was always there to begin with, but this time instead of the temporary comfort of Angel, he was greeted by none other than Sir Darcy the Third and Gunner, with the slight occasional inquiry of Craven. Miss Darcy was reaching for the knife hidden in her socks but refrained to do so when she saw that Damian needed his voices instead of the silence, silence gave him sanity and to be valued in his family, sanity was something you could never have. She watched in the background as she clung to a dying Angel, bitter tears making a strong flow down the banks of her slightly wrinkled cheeks.

When he stopped hyperventilating, in came the depression. The energy he had so much of was now gone, a forest turned into a desolate wasteland of sand dunes and the occasional stereotypical tumbleweed, howling winds instead of a bird's chirp. Damian didn't know which one he liked better honestly, the constant peace and quiet of a desert, or the constant reminder of surrounding life from a lovely forest. It was like his heart, the more that Damian thought about it, two complete stark contrasts trying to coexist in the same small claustrophobic space. The black haired man couldn't think that many coherent sentences in his mind, so he just chanted blankly through his lips, 'Aftershocks, aftershocks, aftershocks.' Because he just wanted to quietly remind himself that he just went through a trauma, and it would at least take a couple days on a short term basis to get back to work fully functioning. Other than that, he knew it would take years, decades to recover mentally, if there was any chance of that at all.

Mercy came back to his window sill, little tiny puffs of black feathers under her wings. Although Damian would've enjoyed her company greatly, he knew that she was now a busy animal. "I don't want you to be here right now, seeing me like this," Damian started. He took a sigh that reached deep into his chest, but he left only a quiet exhale as evidence, and continued, "But there is a time when I do want you to come back. When I'm about to die. That's the time I want to see you, so I can take it as a sign from the heavens above that my time is nearing a close." He didn't mind that his finger was nuzzled by her head, but he didn't want to catch any diseases. He washed his hands, and then he shut the window, leaving Mercy to get the clue that she had to fly away for good this time. No more surprise visits, no more secret glances at the human that saved her, but she knew that she had only one job in life.

And it was to visit Damian when he was at his last hour. 

She had reason to her life again, she already had children, taught them up, and saw them fly away from her. When she saw her first child fly away from her, she thought that at that moment, she felt what Damian must've felt. Cold, alone and sad. It was her empathy and emotion that killed her will, the broke her heart into millions of little pieces, and none other than Damian taught her to feel. For the better, or for the worse. 

No one called Damian, not even his therapist, the one he expected to call him the most. So, with that burden off of his shoulders, he decided to walk. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and for a moment when he was just floating around in the universe he thought, 'Why did I go out here in the first place?' He just shrugged his shoulders lightly to himself, and he let his mind go blank for a little bit, letting his feet walk themselves to a creepy destination. Not a dark alleyway or a group's crack den, but a graveyard. Her graveyard to be exact, the one where she was buried in a wealthy looking casket. He wondered if she was comfy six feet under. 

He didn't know he guided himself to her grave, he guessed that he's visited her so many times that it was just a second nature by that time. When he snapped out of his daze and recognized the name written on the cold piece of stone, and the wilted, dead roses almost turned to mush, he realized that it was her grave he was visiting. He didn't drop to the ground and sob like a little child, but he sat down on the other side of her grave, and rested his head against it. He craved for it to be her body cradling him instead of the wind, he wished for the feeling of her chest against his back, and he wished that he could cradle her body the same way. 

Those wishes would never be granted, even in the afterlife. He never thought of the consequences of killing a person when he was in the League of Assassins, he never thought that if he met someone that he wanted to spend the rest of eternity with, he couldn't spill one single drop of lethal blood, and he has spilt blood by the gallon, by the eternal sea. When he stared into his enemies' blood, when his mother made him bathe in it, he could see his true, monstrous form: Himself. He always wondered why (Y/N) would still befriend him after she found out about his past, about his secret identity, one secrecy that she would protect with her life. He knew that she'd been through some pretty tough shit, but that only makes people less trustworthy, so Damian settled for the explanation that she was just a good person in general. 

A person caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time.


	43. Chapter Forty Three: Isn't it Wonderful?

Resting on his bed's pillow, Damian's head seemed to drift off to another reality, one where he was in between a state of sleep and consciousness. His mind drifted off to the night before (Y/N) was killed, and it was ironically pleasant. They were both in their place on the school's arch, decorated by neatly tucked air mattresses, some soda pop bottles that they were sure to clean up the morning after, some printed out pictures taken by the hand of Damian Wayne to look at with awe, and two children quietly chatting the night away. They talked about many things, some topics light hearted, some heavier, but the thing that made the night meaningful to him was her question. 

"Aren't the stars wonderful?" Damian nodded his head in agreement. He, indeed, thought that the universe was beautiful. She pointed to the moon, in all of it's full glory of the month, it was shining a heavenly silver light upon the city Damian once held so dearly to his heart. 

"I like the moon the most. Do you know why?" Damian shook his head this time. He wanted to know, but he just wanted to stay silent for a little while. He had a stressful day, and sometimes he got all silent, moments like this were no different. (Y/N) would comfort him by telling him things about herself that she would tell no one else, and somehow her secrets would eventually coax him out of his state. She pointed at the moon again, moving her arm so her index finger could outline the circular shape of the moon. 

"I like it because it's always there for me. Always. When I was all alone... I had the big rock floating around the Earth to comfort me. Even when it would hide away in the darkness, I would look up in the sky in the nighttime, and I would know that I had the moon to look forwards to."

"The moon always reminds me of someone, who does the moon remind you of, Damian?" 

The question took him by surprise. He knew that he'd shock her if he told her the truth, but in all honesty Damian thought that it shouldn't have been such a shocker. She knew that she was his best friend, she knew that she was one of the only people that really cared about him, deep down, so when he told her quietly, with a blush creeping upon his face with her smile almost brighter than the moon's strong, silvery gaze itself, that it was her he thought about when he looked at the moon, she only smiled wider at him and told him that she thought of him too. 

Her answer brought him great relief, he thought that it would be kind of awkward if she thought of someone else. And he knew that she wasn't lying either, he'd even dare to say that she wouldn't almost never lie to him. The only time she would lie to him is when they talked about her past, but Damian could understand the pressure she felt when she was being constantly interrogated by his intimidating gaze. But, she soon learned to know that behind that intimidation was just plain and simple love. 

"I'm starting to get tired. You?" Damian asked his best friend, and now it was her turn to be silent and just nod her head, as she covered her mouth, yawning. What she didn't expect was for her to be picked up by him, making her squeak and blush. He only ever carried her when she was asleep, so this was a first. (Y/N) was such a reactive person, and he thought that her reactions themselves were even cuter. When he did something too intimate for a friend to do, she blushed, or when he was caught getting a midnight snack, she would join him in a fit of giggles, asking how an assassin could get caught by a girl. He would roll his eyes and her and would ask her if she wanted food or not, and she would happily oblige. 

When they were done getting to her house, the night didn't stop there. They got some food and hauled ass to (Y/N)'s room, where they got high on sugar, the tiredness from before seemingly fading away before they crashed again, their sleeping bodies tangled into some form that could be titled as just a cute cuddle. Before he fell asleep lie his best friend though, he stared at her face while his other hand, the hand not holding his head up played with the bottom of the girl's shirt. She respected the fact that if he didn't have something to fidget with in his hands, he would go absolutely insane, so she would let Damian play with her things, like zippers on a backpack or the occasional lucky mechanical pencil (Y/N) had found on the ground in another class. In this case, it was simply just the hem of her shirt.

But that was just a secondhand nature. Something in the back of his mind, one thing that didn't really matter. Her face was what mattered to him, and how the strong moon light reflected off of her whole body, how it made her face glow in a ghostly, but lovely light, how her hair shone proudly and her skin... Angelic. And Damian made the biggest mistake he could in his life: He fell asleep. It wasn't one that was too noticeable, in fact, it was quite innocent, and he had went to sleep at her side many times before, but when he woke up to the sound of (Y/N) silent sobs, he knew that he'd fucked something up. 

He remembered that he opeded his eyes, and (Y/N) crawled over to him immediately. She was in a set of thin pajamas, and you don't exactly leave hostages in a clean, heated dungeon, now do you? So they were huddling up together, (Y/N)'s crying ceasing a bit after some time. They were held for a month, Professor Pyg made sure that he didn't leave any clues that time so he could have some extra fun with his imperfections. Once in awhile, the man himself would come in the room to beat (Y/N), the sensation of pain she knew all too well but hadn't felt in a long time. And every single time Pyg came into that God forsaken room to beat up his best friend, Damian retaliated the best he could, but then Pyg, normally in his drunken or high state would order his experiments to roughen Damian up too, he knew that he would have to be patient for a window of opportunity an escape. 

That escape only came for Damian. When Bruce came in his suit, he saw the he came too late. Damian was starved, something that he could fix, but he could never fix his son's best friend. In a way, he felt a large loss in his heart too. That little girl was too sweet to die that early, and when Damian lost (Y/N), Bruce knew that he lost his son with her. He could see the emptiness in his eyes at the girl's funeral, how he didn't cry but you could see that he wasn't sleeping, he wasn't eating, you could see that he had no will to live anymore and it broke everyone's heart, even Tim's. Some didn't blame (Y/N) for Damian's depression, some weren't angry at her, but the people that were quickly learned that if they spoke their anger loudly that they would crawl home with many, many injuries, (I.e. Jason, Tim, Cassandra, Stephanie). Damian could care less if you were a man, woman or child, you do not bludgeon his best friend's memory, you do not spit on his first and last love's grave. 

Damian didn't like those thoughts. Not at all, so he went back to the hours before their capture, when he was looking at her face with his head propped up by his hand, his other plating with the hem of the little girl's shirt, staring intently at her sleeping form, her beautiful unconscious grace. 

Those thoughts Damian liked better.


	44. Chapter Forty Four: Finishing

The last page. He was on the last page of his book, his own Frankenstein, and he was planning to burn it at the stake happily. He was saving a moment for the very last page, one that would give a meaningful ending to his finale that he so desperately needed. It was when they were both on the balcony, again, but this time, there were no dog tags or voices in his head or muffins being ruined by candle wax. It was just the two of them without any distraction whatsoever. 

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"(Y/N), I've been thinking about something," (Y/N) looked at me, and I appreciated at that moment of how she would giver her undivided attention to me when something was up. Hell, she'd give her attention to me when something wasn't wrong, and in that way I knew that (Y/N) truly cared about me. Not only did it make me feel love, but it made me feel loved, a foreign but lovely feeling. Love is lovely. She absently ran some fingers through her hair and behind her ear. After that, she closed her knees to her chest and rested her head, still staring straight at me. Any normal person would think that it was weird, but I knew that she was giving off a sign. A silent urge for me to continue, she was just done preparing herself for what was to come. 

"I don't want to be Batman when I'm older. I don't even want to be a Robin now, but that's our secret, understand?" I didn't want to explain further than that, my straightforwardness was showing itself robustly. But, I knew that he would have to explain things, painfully. I liked to keep things to myself, but (Y/N) was a part of me, in every way. I could feel feelings on a deeper level, parts of myself that were unknown even to me, and is I had a best friend like that, then it would be obvious that I saw her as more. But she didn't ask for more information, I was blessed with her need of only simple information so she could figure out the details on her own. In only a couple seconds she discovered that I merely wanted a normal life. 

"I support that decision, Damian. You know I'd stand by you through anything," (Y/N)'s words were quickly formulated and certain, it gave me a feeling of safety and if I hadn't felt it before, I felt a sense of reliability that I couldn't really find with anyone else. Although these feelings weren't new to me, it helped lighten my serious mood, even if it was only by a little bit. 

"Even if I were a middle class man with nine kids?" I joked, and my best friend giggled. Although I would make my best efforts for my kids to be shared with her, I just wanted to make her laugh in the present moment. I wouldn't mind having nine kids with (Y/N) actually, but I wouldn't want to put my own kids down. The older or younger sibling dynamic was brutal, so I could just settle with one kid if (Y/N) wished for less trouble. Kids were, in fact, lots of trouble to an adult. Some kids weren't, (I don't even know how (Y/N) would be friends with me), but I was. I laughed with the sinners more than I cried with the saints, even at the age of thirteen. 

"Even if I were a quote unquote, 'Thug?'" (Y/N) full out laughed at my inquiry that time. A thug? Me? Really? She covered her mouth as her body shook with her laughs, filling the air around us and leaving the swirly cold smoke she was breathing out leave in individual puffs. And the next thing that got her was my way of speaking, sometimes it was just too "Adorable" to handle. God, I'd go livid when she called me adorable, although she had the pleasure of fully knowing that I'd never touch a hair on her head the wrong way. She loved how my brother Dick couldn't have the capacity to teach my the whole modern American culture, and how it would be weird to anyone else if I used "Quote, unquote," But, after her laughter died down, she responded to ,me with full honesty. 

"I'd be your partner in crime!" I granted a small smile to form on my face. I could just imagine (Y/N) violently slitting another person's throat as if they were nothing. After the age of ten, I stopped trying to toy with my morals and fix them with the complete sense of justice. They were my thoughts and my thoughts only, if I didn't act on them then I couldn't find anything wrong with my logic. So, I accepted that morbidly pleasing thought as a fantasy for later. Maybe I could train (Y/N) how to use a knife. Wait, I wondered, has she gotten into a knife fight before? It was entirely possible. 

Shit. And the worst part of it was that I had to ask that question later, not immediately. 

"Would you do the same for me? Stand by me, I mean," (Y/N) said thoughtfully after their laughter died down, and silence filled the air once again. 

"To the grave, (Y/N)." I said seriously. No matter how many roses I bought, or how many tears I shed or bottles I drank, I would always be at her side, even if she couldn't have the ability to physically be at mine. She blushed at my words and looked away, I think that it was just the sudden intensity of my words that caught her off guard. 

"Thank you," (Y/N) said quietly. I didn't urge her to explain, just how she didn't urge me to explain at the beginning of this moment. In a silent way, I could tell that she was thankful that I noticed these small details. We spent the rest of our night contemplating our futures with each other, something we did often, but this time it was in a new light. We had silently promised each other that we would never leave each other's side. 

It was a promise that I broke.


End file.
